After
by Ikonopeiston
Summary: What's a Heaven For? So long and thanks for all the ... whatever.
1. Default Chapter

This is by way of being a self-indulgence – a relaxation from the labour of the big novel and a casual glance at what an Epilogue might look like. The usual disclaimers apply and I wish to tip my metaphorical hat to The Jack of Spades who has investigated much more thoroughly than I the relationship I touch only in passing, as it were.

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After

He had always considered place shifting one of those rosy myths that furnished the fantasies of novelists and poets. Still, how to explain what had just happened? He had been standing in a low cave about to engage with a mysterious being which was posing a major danger to the populace when a cloud of dust had blown into his eyes. He had automatically thrown up his arm as a shield and squeezed his lids tightly shut. When he opened his eyes seconds later, he was in another place. Here. There had been no sense of movement, just this sudden relocation to another place as though the scenery had been abruptly changed on the stage he occupied. What else could it be but the shifting of place?

With an increasing air of curiosity, he looked about him. He was in the very antithesis of the dim fetid cave he remembered entering. He found himself standing under an limitless sky in a meadow of turquoise grass with pastel blooms glimmering into the distance. The soothing susurration of water falling over stones supplied the background music for whatever he was experiencing. Searching for the source of the sound, he slowly spun on his good leg and saw little to differentiate one horizon from another. Far in the distance to his left, he could just make out what seemed to be a curtain, swaying slightly in an unfelt breeze, suspended from nothing visible and apparently concealing something he could not distinguish.

A faint tickle in the back of his mind made him think he knew this place. Surely he had been here before, at least in a dream. He forced himself to stop and consider carefully. What had happened to him this time? There didn't seem to be any physical change, his left arm and leg were still the machina creations they had been before he was transported; he still needed spectacles to see and a cane to walk, but there was a difference. He was limping less as though the heavy prosthetic leg had grown lighter or his muscles stronger and the pain that had been his companion since his fatal encounter with Sin was absent. It was a mystery which had no obvious solution and he found himself bewildered and disoriented.

In a small way, it was like the feeling he had experienced when he first struggled with the aftereffects of his death and resurrection. The same void in the memory, the inability to make the necessary connections. With a subliminal sigh, he started walking toward the distant curtain since it was the only objective he could fix on in this hazy world.

He had walked for what seemed to be a long time – he could not tell how long for there were no markers to help him judge the duration – when he saw the hint of a dark presence to his left. Squinting to bring the object into focus, he thought it looked like a vast construction of dish-like platforms forming a sort of organic staircase up to some shadowy height. Then, slowly floating up from the oceanic depths of his consciousness came the recognition of what he was seeing. It was the place he and the others had fought and defeated Vegnagun. It was there that he had planned his own destruction in order to overcome the un-sent creature that had roused the great weapon and from there that the forces of the light had emerged triumphant. So this must be the FarPlane! Sheer astonishment brought his process to a halt.

So, he had finally made it! He had finally finished the pilgrimage that had occupied his entire adult life. He had finally and irrevocably died. An overwhelming sense of relief and satisfaction swept through him at the realization. Had he been physically capable of such movement, he would have danced a quick jig of transcendent joy. Finally! With a wry twist of a smile, he considered his current situation. He would have thought that a merciful providence might have provided him with his own limbs back once he crossed the barrier between life and death for the last time. And given him back his raptor vision. However, that apparently was not the way things worked here and he must content himself with what he had. At least he was done with living. He did wonder when he could merge into the great mass of non-existence and quit his awareness as a distinct individual. All the teachings of his elders had suggested strongly that death led to a quiet, unconscious absorption into the whole of what had been and to freedom from the burden of discrete thought and responsibility. It seemed they were wrong or such release was not instantaneous with extinction. This entire line of thought was exceeding strange to him since he had lost faith in the very concept of the FarPlane many years ago.

What if the destruction of Sin and Vegnagun had radically changed the structure of the universe? What if eternity was just a dreary continuation of the old world in somewhat more pleasant surroundings? He was torn; should he revisit the stairway to the last battleground or continue on toward the the mysterious curtain which was now perceptibly closer? After some pondering, he chose to pursue the curtain only because it was an object new to him, one of which he had no experience. If this was truly eternity, he would have all the time he needed or wanted to visit everything that was to be found here so the choice really didn't matter. As he continued on, he noticed that he was feeling no hunger, thirst or fatigue. That, more than anything else convinced him he was indeed dead this time and in some sort of other world whether it was what Spirans knew as the FarPlane or not.

After another timeless interval, he perceived that he was within arm's length of the curtain, now seen to be an insubstantial yet impenetrable wall of subtly shifting light, like that which sometimes graced the skies in the northern reaches of Spira. He reached a hand to touch the moving pattern and felt his wrist seized in what seemed to be a human grasp. At the same time a voice spoke, hurting his ears.

"What is your name? Don't you know the procedure here?"

He stood astonished for a moment before collecting himself and answering. "I'm called Nooj and I have just arrived here so I know none of the procedures."

"Ah, I see. Well, you can't go through this barrier unless you are Called by someone on the other side and then you must make yourself known to one of us – the Doorkeepers – and we will show you where to go to meet your visitor."

"I don't understand any of this. How can I know if I've been called and what is this calling about?"

"You will be powerfully drawn to this place when you are Called and the Calling ... Well, that's hard to explain. This..." the invisible being made an expansive gesture which Nooj felt as a wind brushing his face, "is where eternity touches time. Where the immortals may speak to the mortal and farewells may be said, explanations made and apologies offered. This is where you settle your final account with the living."

"I don't understand. I thought I'd be freed from all this human preoccupation with setting things straight once I got here. I'm looking for the Nothingness I was promised."

"Are you now? You won't find it here. You're in the basic Spiran FarPlane and it's totally concerned with reconciliation and making everyone feel good about themselves. I don't know why you weren't told about this while you were alive."

"Never mind. It would take a major part of eternity to explain. Have I been Called by anyone?"

Nooj heard the sound of pages being turned. "No, I don't see your name on the list. It is spelled En Oh Oh Jay, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Did you leave any friends behind when you made the crossing?"

"That's a hard one. I had some companions-at-arms, a mentor or two and a pregnant mistress. I was never a very friendly mortal."

"And so now you're a friendless Immortal," the Doorkeeper laughed cruelly. "No, no Callings so you can just wander off and amuse yourself."

"What's to be done here? Are there any other Immortals to talk to?"

"Not unless you're a member of a recognized grouping. You know, like a Yevonite or an Al Bhed or a Hypello – that sort of social club."

Nooj cast through his memories, "I founded the Youth League. Are any of that group here yet?"

"Let me see," again the sound of rustling paper. "No, I don't see any group using that name. There's a small contingent called the Elite Guard which is always mooning about somebody called the Undying which seems to have a bit of your aura about it. They're over near the foot of the staircase you must have seen on your way here."

"Elite Guard? Oh god – it's that flock of females who decided to worship me back at the Mushroom Rock Headquarters. Is that the best you can do?"

"For the moment, check back in an eon or so; things do change here if slowly."

"Thank you." Nooj had turned to leave when he remembered, "How does one summon a Doorkeeper if one is Called?"

"Don't worry about it. If you're Called, a Doorkeeper will be expecting you. Just avoid this area until you receive a Calling."

Nooj spun slowly around, surveying the unvarying meadow. He had not expected any afterworld at all – much less one that promised to be an eternity of boredom. A man who had always avoided other people whenever possible, he thought that this should be his Paradise indeed, this enclosed garden of solitude. Somehow it didn't feel that way. There appeared to be nothing to do, no tasks demanding his attention, no refining his skills at battle – even if he had his weapons which seem to have vanished along with the world which had produced them. Why had the machina implanted in his body remained – and his cane – when so much else had disappeared? He started to ask the Doorkeeper what the rules were for that only to discover that the disembodied presence of that being had dissipated as well. He was alone again.

The music of water falling over stones was still detectable even though attenuated. If he could find that place which he remembered vaguely from his first visit to this Plane, he would sit down on the feathery grass and think about what to do next. He started walking toward the white sound of the falls.

After a considerable trek, he was able to see something on a horizon that had gradually made itself known. There was a delicate shift in the color surrounding him, more green was becoming noticeable and the flowers were deeper in hue. There was, indeed, a shape emerging from the meadow. He hurried as quickly as he could toward the phenomenon. Yes, suddenly rising before him was a wall of silver-grey stone polished by a flashing veil of water. And sitting on the grass and looking at the sight was a male figure with his arms resting on his knees.

The man was dressed like a Warrior, in a scarlet uniform identical to that sported by Nooj. The man was unusually tall and broad in proportion, even sitting as he was with his legs drawn up and his head thrown back.

"Olefer! Father!" Nooj cried out as he recognized the stranger.

"I am Olefer and who are you?" The man's deep voice seemed to shatter the quiet of the scene and fragment the placidity, making Nooj's senses reel so that he stumbled to the ground near the older man.

Pausing for a moment to recover and collect himself for this unexpected encounter, Nooj replied, "I'm Nooj – your son, your only child, your only son." He stretched out his hand toward the figure.

"Don't touch! Can't tell what might happen. So you're dead, are you? I thought you'd be along sooner rather than later. You were always a reckless one. Lost a good part of yourself, I see. I suppose our blood-line's extinct now. Never thought I could rely on you to preserve it." Olefer turned his eyes back to the towering mossy falls with implicit dismissal.

"I never meant to leave you on that field – it's just that there was a coven of Mages and I had to..." Nooj began his oft-rehearsed justification to his parent.

"It doesn't matter; you did what you had to do. I was long overdue for death anyway. I shouldn't have called you a coward; you weren't. On my way here I saw what you had done and regretted what I said but you never sought me out so I couldn't tell you."

"I lost my belief in this place and it didn't seem right to come begging when I didn't believe in any of it. And, about the birth-line ... it's safe. I left my mistress pregnant with twin boys."

"Twins? What have you been up to? Our people don't produce twins." Olefer turned his full attention to his son.

Nooj had begun to explain to his father the conditions surrounding the conception of the two boys when an irresistible summons tugged at him. This must be what the Doorkeeper had meant. He struggled to his feet and prepared for the long walk back to the curtain when he saw that his destination was no more that a dozen feet away. He looked back at Olefer who waved his hand and said, "Go see who your visitor is; we'll have time after you finish with your mortal. It's probably that mistress of yours."

The Doorkeeper was waiting; Nooj sensed the unseen presence as he neared the curtain and then felt his right hand taken by the being. "Come this way; I'll take you to your visitor."

He passed easily through the wall of light and into a vast circular area with mist obscuring the surface beneath his feet. Before him was a broad column of spinning color which, like the main curtain, parted at his touch. Inside he found himself facing LeBlanc across a nacreous table. Her abdomen was noticeably swollen and her manner dejected.

"LeBlanc! How long have I been gone?" He had thought it to be less than a day.

"It has been six months, my love, and I have been Calling for you every day. I miss you so much. Life without you isn't worth bearing. If it weren't for the ..."

"Six months! It can't be that long; I just got here and there have been no Calls. How are you? Is your health well?"

Anger flared in her eyes, "Your sons are still thriving, if that's what you mean. As for me, I am alone and lost. Why did you have to take that Final Mission? Why couldn't you stay with me and be content?" She sank into the chair on her side of the table and, dropping her head into her hands, began to weep convulsively.

He reached across to her and was dismayed to see his hands pass though her substance like a projected image through a fog. "Please don't cry. I can't touch you to comfort you but please ... believe that I care about you, not just as the mother of my sons but as the supportive companion you always were to me in every way. Our life together may have been short but it was a good life and the pleasure we shared made much of my existence on Spira tolerable. Those memories are never to be lost, not even here. Is there any way I can help you now?"

"Let me come and look at you when I need to and stay here until our sons are old enough to learn who you are." She had control of herself again and was stroking his insubstantial face as though they could both feel the caress.

"I didn't know I could leave but, of course, I'll be here until you give birth and as long afterwards as you need me. How much longer do you have?"

"Only three and a half months, if the calculations are right. The Healers are telling me it will be an easy time. I'm not sure I believe them but I'll not flinch. Nooj, I so much want to show you your children. I wish you could hold them." Tears formed in her eyes again.

"Be strong like you were at our parting. Men of my race don't hold their children much in any event. We are content to admire them and the women who bear them. I know the boys will be worthy because they have your blood as well as mine." He had always been uncomfortable around emotions and awkwardly sought to deflect another spasm of tears.

"I see you still have the machina limbs – do you still have the phantom pains? Does nothing change when we pass over?"

"No pain anymore and I'm not certain myself about the implants. There are changes, but ..."

The Gatekeeper's voice interrupted, "Time, gentleman."

He was being pulled away from the meeting by some unknowable force and watched her disappear like beam of light obscured by a passing cloud with nothing save the sound of a plaintive wail to mark her passing. Then he was once again at the place of waterfalls with the aurora curtain nowhere in sight.

Olefer raised a brow. "Let me guess – I was right? That was the miracle woman, the one carrying two sons for you?"

"Yes, it was LeBlanc and about the twins ..."

"Never mind. I trust you are correct about the number and are sure that they're really yours. I hope so because that's all of our family that's left. We were always too quick to die and too slow to mate. Well, I must be going now."

"Where are you going? Are there any others of our tribe here and, if so, where are they?"

"I'm going into the Nothingness. I only stayed to talk to you. You're bound to this place until you've cleared your slate with those you wronged, after that you can go on wherever you like. The only decent thing about all this is that you can choose your own eternity. Nothing makes you go on until you're ready but you can't go until you've paid off your moral debts. I don't know if there are any others like us and don't have any idea where to go to seek them. I'm relieved to have seen you and made my apologies and now – goodbye."

"Stop! Tell me – how does this place operate?"

The older man paused and turned to face his son, "I thought I just told you; this is the Spiran FarPlane. Many Spirans stay here because this is what they expected and they don't know any better. There is an infinite number of Planes beyond this and after you've cleaned up the messes you left behind, you can choose which you prefer. Only one choice though; you can't try one out and later change your mind. When you are ready to move on, be sure you know what you want. As I said, I'm on my way to the Plane Of Nothingness. Well, good luck." With that Olefer walked into a crimson rectangle that materialized before him and was gone.

Nooj stood indecisively for a time, wondering how he was expected to learn how to function in the peculiar universe in which he found himself with neither a guide nor a guidebook when a movement caught his eye. Striding toward him from across the meadow was a slim figure in black. With a resigned groan, he waited for her to come within reach of his voice.

"Hello, Paine. When did you die?" For some unexplained reason he was not surprised to see the woman here, clad in her usual outfit, looking somehow smaller without her omni-present sword.

She stood, legs apart, arms akimbo, skewering him with her dried blood eyes. "I put a knife in my heart when I heard you were dead. It seemed the proper thing to do. I didn't want to keep on marking time without even the hope that you would leave that stupid slut and come back where you belonged."

He didn't answer. The relationship between them had been complex, dating from the time they were fellow aspirants to the Crimson Squad. He had still been recovering from his mortal injuries and had found in her another laconic, somewhat cynical soul which reflected his own. They had become lovers until he, in a state of mania, had attempted to kill her and several others and had later commenced a prolonged liaison with LeBlanc. Since he himself was not completely sure what had propelled his choosing the Syndicate leader over the swordswoman to be the mother of his children, he knew he had no hope of explaining it to Paine. He thought he might have been exhausted with running from the blonde seductress for so long but that didn't fit his concept of himself as heroic and decisive and was certainly no rationale for so major a decision. So, like the sensible man he was at his core, he held his tongue.

"Why did you take that last mission when you didn't need to? And why did you live with that idiot when you could have had me? I can't make any sense out of all of this, not even this totally unsatisfactory place we're stuck in. What are we supposed to do here? Vegetate and pray?" She had never been one to suffer foolishness fondly.

Nooj sat down on the ground and gestured for her to join him. "You weren't given any instructions either? Maybe you have to be religious to quality for explanations. As well as I can understand, this is where we have to stay until we have settled all our accounts with both the living we left behind and the dead who have preceded us. I agree it's not what I was hoping for when I spent all those years as a Deathseeker. As for the rest, I have absolutely no logical justification why I made the choices I did." He belatedly realized that silence was no longer an option since he could not leave the FarPlane until he had effected some kind of reconciliation with the pewter-haired woman.

Paine threw herself down beside him and crossed her legs, scowling with irritation. "So now what? This isn't what I expected either. I thought I would go to some sort of place where I could try my skills against other Warriors and spend the time rehashing some of my better battles. By the way, why are you still using those implants? Some sort of affectation? Didn't they offer to restore the real things? I thought things were run more efficiently on this side." He was the only person who had ever been able to provoke her into torrents of words. It was not an unmixed blessing.

Nooj sighed, "I'm getting tired of having to explain that I don't know why I'm not intact again. It's just the way it is. Do you think I like limping and squinting?"

"Sorry, I'm not the most tactful woman in the world ... in either world, I guess."

"You never were; that's why we got along so well." He unthinkingly reached for her with his right arm and, to his surprised delight, was able to grasp her and draw her into his embrace. "You're the first person I've been able to actually touch in this place. For god's sake, stay put."

Paine laughed and nuzzled her head against his chest. "Just like the old days, huh? Us together again and Blondie stuck at home with a big belly. I ought to beat you up for what you've done to me. Trying to kill me..."

"That wasn't me."

"It was you who moved in with that tramp and knocked her up; you can't deny that." With a sudden move, she rammed her body into his, throwing him on his back and straddling his waist with her hands pinning his shoulders.

He didn't try to dislodge her, just lay there looking up into her theatrically snarling face and grinning. "Just like the old days. You never could keep your body off mine. Please, Madame Paine, I'll do what you say, anything you say." He managed a creditable falsetto, pretending to cringe in fear.

"Will you, now?" She rolled off him and lay relaxed, her short hair tickling his nose as she butted gently against his chin. "I don't suppose we can resume our ... er ... friendship on this level."

"Why not? Nobody seems willing to tell us what the standards are here and so far as I can tell, everything about me that worked before I died still works. How about you?"

"Everything reporting for duty, captain. But what about your wife?"

"We never formally married. She is the preserver of my genetic heritage and I honor her for that but she's alive and I'm not – that does seem to make a difference. ... Why are you trying to spoil the mood?" He gent;u squeezed her right nipple with his machina fingers.

Paine drew a deep albeit shaky breath and deliberately draped her body over his, matching limb for limb. "I'll bet I can get my leather off before you can get out of that uniform."

"Impetuous woman," he stroked down the length of her back, sliding his right hand under her shorts. "Let me help you out of yours and then you can return the favor. More fun for us both and, you forget, we have all the time in the world. In any world."

She snuggled contentedly into his arms, "I knew there was a reason we made you our captain. You always did have the most brilliant ideas. Those things that look like ties are really snaps. Ready when you are."

He reached for the first buckle.

Sep 9, 20049


	2. Chapter II

To any of you who are bothering to follow this trifle – I'm just letting it find its own way as a picaresque story without much import. It's my release valve when the principal work gets too dense and troubling. So – enjoy, if you will.

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**After**

**Chapter Two**

Later, when they lay happily spent on the fragrant grass, Paine looked up at him and smiled, "Well, so we don't have to be bored all the time. But now, what do we do?"

He rolled off her and stretched languidly, "I usually take a nap, but sleep seems to be another of those luxuries missing from this so-called heaven, like food and drink. I suppose we might stroll over to the waterfall and shower."

"All right, let me pick up my clothes. ... Where are my leggings? They're not here."

"I don't know. I remember swinging them around my head and letting go. They're probably somewhere in some direction – maybe buried in the grass."

"You ass! You threw away my clothes!"

"Why do you want those things anyway? It takes you forever to buckle them on and you'll just have to take them off again. You have your shorts, don't you?"

She looked around, a puzzled frown between her brows. "No, they're gone too and I don't see any of your stuff."

"What!" He awkwardly levered himself upright. "That's enough of this gaming. I don't know what's going on around here but I intend to find out. This is absolutely unacceptable behavior from whoever's in charge."

"Wait a minute; I see something over there." Paine, as white and slim as a young birch in her nakedness, ran lightly across the meadow. "Look what I found!" She came loping back carrying an armful of fabric.

When spread out, the discovery proved to be a scarlet cassock like the ones Nooj had favored for leisure wear on Spira and a black form-fitting dress of a size roughly appropriate to Paine.

"Great Yevon!" she panted as she squeezed into the garment. "I'm going to look like Lulu. How the hell did she ever stand this iron maiden? Talk about unacceptable ..."

"So don't wear it." He was tying the loose laces that crossed his chest. "You look better without a dress anyway."

"Stop leering. And if you intend to get anywhere, you'd better locate your cane."

"It's right here. Apparently the resident deity of this place draws the line at some cruelties." He stood casually watching her finish cramming herself into the costume which did look rather like the sort of thing a Black Mage would have chosen. "How do I look?"

"Like a debauched priest. And I look like a harlot." She set the pace toward the wall of water, her boyish gait slightly hampered by the long skirt.

A pool had formed at the base of the nearest cataract and spread its rainbow bubbles in a constantly renewed display of careless art. Paine kicked the surface, throwing a spray of water that itself cast a greater rainbow. "Did you notice we weren't supplied any footwear?"

"Maybe we're meant to be as naked and unashamed as the primeval couple in the legends and whatever runs this place is easing us into it." His voice was muffled as he tugged the cassock over his head before dropping it and stepping under the softly falling stream. "I hope we'll find these clothes still here when we want them. Come on in, the water's fine."

"You'll have to wait; this thing's harder to get out of than your robe." It was fortunate that she was lithe as a gymnast since that seemed to be the essential requirement for donning and doffing the garment with which she had been supplied.

When she finally joined him under the falls, she turned happily around and around to permit the water to reach all parts of her body. Poking him in the hip beside the sheath connecting the machina leg, she teased, "Aren't you afraid you'll rust?"

"Not as long as I stay active." He grabbed her by the neck and held her under the heaviest flow.

"You bastard! I don't have any gel and now my hair will just flop all over my face."

"Paine, shut up. You're complaining too much. We're stuck here and might as well try to enjoy what we can." He pulled her close for a long embrace which left her breathless and therefore silent. "I like your hair loose and soft; that way it doesn't poke me in the eye." He kissed her again, half in desire and half in relief at having a companion in this unexpectedly irritating supposedly perfect world.

She leaned against him contentedly. If what he had first said was true and the way to escape this plane was to make amends for one's past misdeeds, she vowed not to apologize for anything to anyone at any time. She had no wish to proceed to whatever level might be beyond this; why should she? He was here.

"You've cut your hair." She murmured into his chest.

"Just the very long part. It wasn't necessary anymore after the Unification. There wasn't any reason to wear distinguishing marks after that."

"I thought maybe Blondie talked you into it."

"Paine, you're nattering again." He used the most effective method to distract her.

After a thoroughly satisfying dalliance, they emerged from the shower refreshed and delighted with one another and themselves. For a miracle, their clothes lay where they had been discarded, so it wasn't long before they were on their way again. With unprecedented consideration, Paine moderated her vigorous stride to his limp so they forged a leisurely path through the dense grass of the meadow.

"Where do you want to go?" He asked her. "I know only three places here: the waterfalls, the curtain and the staircase to the old Vegnagun battle field."

"I wasn't noticing much when I got here, just looking for you, but I think I saw a trail leading into a bank of clouds somewhere."

"Could you find it again?"

"Well, no ... I don't think so. It really wasn't an actual trail, more of a thought about a trail." Her voice slowly faded to nothing.

He stopped and looked at her with appalled disbelief. "A thought about a trail? What's that supposed to mean? You never used to make idiotic remarks like that. Did you put that dagger through your brain instead of your heart?"

"No." she responded defensively. "I just don't know how to describe some of the shapes and things that keeping popping up and then disappearing. Let's hear you do any better." He had always been able to make her feel young and stupid.

'Oh, never mind. Let's keep walking and investigate the first solid thing we come across. By the way, have you had any Calls since you got here? Who did you leave behind?"

"No Calls – I didn't leave any close associates behind me. Not like you with Blondie and the boys. I had a fling or two with some people we both know but nothing serious and we parted with no regrets or harsh feelings. No – I'm not expecting anybody to try to reach me here."

"Who did you get mixed up with? Baralai? That puling cotton-headed infant?"

"Do I hear a note of jealously, Mr. Autonomous? I thought you believed in freedom, letting everybody make his own choices. Aren't you the one who bit my head off when I saved your life that time in the desert? 'It's my life; I'll throw it away if I want to.'" She savagely mocked him. "I'm not going to tell you who my lovers were. It's none of your business. As you said in another context: they're alive and I'm dead and that does seem to make a difference."

They walked on in silence for a while, she with her lips tightly shut as though to seal in any secrets that might inadvertently spill out and he with a bemused look on his face and a fiercely churning mind.

Suddenly before them, they could see a field of what seemed to be floating boulders, bouncing weightlessly like so many tethered balloons. From time to time, one or more would waft up into the sky and slowly disappear from sight while another or several would with equal slowness emerge from the pervasive glow above.

"Should we ride one?" Nooj asked in a less than enthusiastic tone.

"Where are they going? Looks like just up and down like those things we rode on the way to Vegnagun." Paine had regained her usual cautious self. Never one to leap without reason, she had always been the sensible counterbalance to her group. "Hey, if you come over here you can look over the edge and there's nothing down there. Just like the last time."

"I think they are the same ones. Maybe they'll take us to the old battleground."

"I thought you saw the stairs."

"I did but the way things shift on this plane – who knows?"

"Let's keep walking; we can always come back. I don't like riding rocks when I can't see where they're taking me." She set the pace again and he limped hastily to catch up.

"Damn these implants anyway. What sort of heaven doesn't do repairs?" he burst out in exasperation.

"I think I have it figured out." Paine spoke almost to herself. "If you're an unbeliever and not religious and don't do all the ceremonial things you're supposed to do, when you die you go to the FarPlane but without privileges. You don't get any of the rewards and have to perform all the obligations. It's a matter of doing the hard part when you're alive or after you're dead. Does that make sense?"

"As much as anything else, I suppose. So you're saying I'm paying for my heathen attitude by not being put back together?"

"More or less. You'll probably get your original body back once you've suffered enough."

"No! I won't accept that! That sort of paltry, vengeful deity is not worth belief much less worship. It's the sort of god that small-minded and vicious humans dream up. I will not accept a god that is smaller than a man! No wonder I never believed in any of them." His voice descended from a shout to a mutter, "They're beneath my contempt."

"Maybe you should start believing – it may not be too late."

"No! I'll stay like I am rather than bend to something as petty as you describe. It's not worth it to sacrifice my intelligence for an arm and a leg." He took a fresh grip on his cane and angrily plunged ahead.

"Do as you like. I give up." She ran a few steps and fell in alongside him.

When at length they came upon the dark presence of the great staircase leading up to the site of their last battle together, they had not spoken for some time and Paine's voice was rough. "Shall we?"

"Let's." He responded with a quick smile and waved her forward.

She was perched on the first landing and he was about to start up the shallow stairs when a small crowd of women came boiling out from the shadowed caves that had formed at the foot of the structure, running, stumbling and waving their arms.

"Nooj! Meyvn! You're finally here. We've been waiting fso long." Like a chorus of Maenads, they threw themselves at him trying to grasp at what they could reach. He flung up his cane in defense but was quickly overcome by their frenzied zeal.

"Get back! What do you want?" he cried as he struggled to keep his balance.

"Meyvn, we want to protect you. We want to take care of you, to serve you." The women wailed in semi-unison as they wound their serpentine arms around whatever part of him was nearest. "We will sacrifice our lives again to keep you safe."

"You're going to suffocate me if you don't stop," he shouted fending off the worshipful bodies that surrounded him. "Paine!"

Paine, who had watched the scene with open and unholy glee, slowly strolled down the staircase. "Need some help, Meyvn? I don't have my sword, Meyvn."

"Just get over here and shove these creatures back." He could not bring himself to lay violent hands on a woman.

Paine waded into the furor and with a few deft slaps, hair pulls and arm twists organized the mob of admirers into a coherent, albeit moaning, mass standing a few paces off from their idol. "They're all yours now, Meyvn. And I mean – yours."

He hesitated for only a moment to glare at her, then - drawing on the experience he had reluctantly gained as the leader of the Youth League - addressed the crowd, telling them of his gratitude for their enthusiastic welcome and directing them to turn their resources to the betterment of their own condition and that of others they encountered on the FarPlane. While they were still in thrall to the sound of his voice, he made his escape up the stairs with Paine at his heels.

They had left the crowd of women far below when he paused to review the current situation with his companion. To his astonishment, he saw she was wearing a pair of yellow high-cut shorts and a green low-cut blouse.

"Where did you get that outfit? I've never seen you in any color other than black before. Been diddling the local deity again?"

"I traded with one of your worshippers before you put her in a trance. I couldn't stand that Lulu dress another minute ." She was smugly aware of how the style if not the color flattered her.

"Good. Maybe now you'll stop complaining."

"No thanks for rescuing you – again?"

He favored her with a quick glance over the tops of his spectacles, "Thank you, Madame Paine."

"Who are those women, anyway?"

"They call themselves the Elite Guard. They formed to protect me when I was headquartered at Mushroom Rock Road. Stop snickering, damn it! I never knew anything about them until after the Vegnagun thing when we were doing all the reorganization and moving to Kilika. I guess the ones back there are the members who died during the skirmishes with New Yevon. Paine, stop laughing!" He turned his back on her and trudged resentfully up the path.

It was no more difficult ascending the wide flat discs of the staircase now than it had been when they had first trod this path. The elevation was not great and the lack of Ferals attacking their flank made the passage remarkably smooth. The higher they went, the darker the surroundings became until they were able to see little except the area immediately surrounding them.

"I don't remember it being this dark." She paused to crane her neck, trying to see how much higher they had to go.

"I do." He answered, "I almost tripped over one of the treads."

"How much farther, do you think?"

"I thought we'd be at the top by now. There were several flights branching off if you recall." He continued to climb and she followed.

"Yes, and I haven't seen them yet. Wonder what's up there now that Vegnagun's been trashed."

"We'll see in a minute." Being nearly a foot taller than Paine, Nooj was able to see the leveling off of the summit before she could. "There's something up there but it's too dark to see what it is yet." He caught her by the forearm as she started to run up the last few steps. "Take it easy; we don't know what's going on in this place. We may not be likely to die again, although I don't discount it, but judging by all the evidence, whoever rules here enjoys nasty jokes. Oh, hell ..." The subliminal Call was tugging at him again. "Stay here; I'll be right back."

"Blondie summoning you to the presence again?" She snorted. "What is it with you and women?"

"Just stay right here. This won't take long." As he approached the curtain that had predictably appeared nearby, he could see her trying to rearrange her breasts more comfortably in the too tight bodice and he smiled.

Sep 13, 20047


	3. Chapter III

Greetings to those two or three who are following this story. I have become aware of a possible problem. The rating here is PG-13 but this chapter (and possibly any following ) contains a certain amount of suggestive material which might in some way offend the more delicate -minded among your number. I do assure you that there is not a single word here sufficiently prurient to bring a blush to the cheek of your most modest maiden aunt, but still ... I don't want to level this up to an 'R' but I will if I am requested to do so. Have you a preference?

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**After**

Chapter Three

With a feeling of resignation, Nooj offered his wrist to the Gatekeeper and permitted himself to be led through the glowing curtain into the place of assignations. Just as he was about to pass the spinning column's bounds, he remembered something. "Can you tell me why I didn't get the rest of my original body back when I died?"

The unseen guide seemed to shrug before answering, "No. That's not my field. You'll have to ask somebody in the department of transitions."

"Where can I find that somebody?"

"How should I know? That's not my field, either. Now just go through there and have your nice visit with your little friend."

It was LeBlanc again, this time looking considerably less pregnant. She sprang from her chair at his entrance and tried to embrace him, sobbing when her arms passed right through his body. "Oh love, it's been more than a week since you didn't come home and I've been coming here trying to reach you. Are you really dead? Why did you have to take that last mission?"

He stared at her incredulously, "A week? Last time it was six months. How much time has really passed? Have my sons been born?"

LeBlanc drew back abruptly and tried to slap him. It was a full arm swing with all her weight behind it and, naturally, passed right through his spectral face without his even feeling the wind of its passage. He instinctively flinched from the blow and reached to grasp her wrist. His move was as ineffectual as hers had been.

"What was all that about? Why are you angry/" He was genuinely puzzled.

"Your sons! All you can talk about or think about are your precious sons. You know they're not due for about ten months; I've told you over and over. Don't you listen or care about me? And what last time?" She fanned herself petulantly.

"Of course I care. How are you feeling?" He put aside the consideration of time's obvious disjoint until later – if later continued to mean anything. "Are things going well for you?"

She burst into a cascade of tears. "How do you think I am? How could things be going well for me when you run off on one of your selfish crusades and deliberately get killed and leave me alone with two children to raise? Oh, I wish I were dead."

The kaleidoscopic fluctuation in her emotional reactions was beginning to trouble him. Although admittedly unversed in the finer points of child-bearing, he could no but think that such storms might be detrimental to the health of both the woman and the embryos she carried. "Please, LeBlanc. Don't cry. I would hold you and comfort you if I could. Please don't do this to yourself. Of course I'm concerned about you. We had a good life together, short but good. How can you think I don't care? Please, stop crying. Remember what I told you – you won't have the rearing of my sons all to do yourself. As soon as they're born, the Elders will take them to the crèche and you will be relieved of the responsibility. It's only a little longer. Please, be strong for them and for me."

"So now you think I'll be comforted to be robbed of my babies, my only reminders of you? Why must you be so cruel? Does it give you some pleasure to torment me? Does that machina heart of yours have no warmth at all? And why are you still carrying around those machina limbs and the cane and the spectacles? I thought they fixed everything up on the FarPlane – made you young again and all that."

"You asked that the last time we met here and I told you I didn't know why things are as they are. Please, stop and try to remember – exactly how long have I been dead?"

"You died a week ago yesterday! That's when they came to tell me. And this is the first time you've answered my Call and I've been here every day since I heard. And why do you keep talking about last time? There isn't any last time – this is the first time we've met here!" Her voice had gradually risen to a scream.

"Shhh ... shhh ..." he soothed. "We don't get long for these meetings so let's not waste our time. I cherish you, my dear, and cherish the memories of our time together. Let's not spoil all we shared. I know you're angry with me and I can't really blame you. If I could hold you it would be easier for us both but I can't do that now that I'm in this place. Please be the great wonderful woman I always knew you to be and I'll be here waiting for you."

"Oh Nooj. I miss you so much and wish you were still with me. My only desire now is that you see your sons once they are born. Will you stay here until I can bring the boys to meet you and let them know their father?" There was a cunning glint in her eye.

Although he saw the trap this time, he felt he had no alternative other than to submit to her demand. He was more concerned with the health and survival of his progeny than with his own comfort – besides he had Paine so going from this plane into Nothingness was no longer the urgent priority it had once been. "Of course, I'll stay here until you no longer need me."

"I love you so...." she began to coo.

"Time, gentleman." He felt himself escorted back to the summit of the dark kingdom where Vegnagun had once reigned, the sound of LeBlanc's dramatic keening echoing in his ears.

"That bad, huh?" Paine said when she saw his face.

"You have no idea." He lowered himself clumsily to the edge of the lily-pad like tread of the staircase. "I'm grateful we don't feel physical pain on this plane or I'd have the mother of all migraines. Do you realize that time is in flux here? Nothing is pinned down and I have no idea what's going on. She says it's now six months earlier than the first time I answered her summons. Six months – she thinks this is the first time we've met here and keeps asking the same questions. How long has it been?" He looked up at her with troubled eyes. "My father seemed to have an idea of time; what's gone wrong with mine?"

Paine stood before him with her arms folded, "Maybe your father was a better person than you and believed what he was taught."

"You never knew my father if you think that and don't start all your religious talk again. I think this is just a completely haphazard place and maybe nobody or nothing is in charge of it at all."

She sat down beside him and pulled his head over to rest on her shoulder. "All upset and bewildered, big boy? Need some distraction?"

He grinned wolfishly, grateful for the change of subject, "You just want to get out of that too-small shirt. You don't fool me."

"I'm only trying to get your mind off Blondie and the sands of time." Paine's fingers were busy with the lacings across his chest. "While you were gone, I noticed that these stairs seem to be made of some sort of organic material and aren't all that uncomfortable to lie on. So just relax and let Doctor P make it all better."

When he was able to think coherently again, he murmured, "It's so strange to taste myself on your tongue."

"Do you like it?"

Nooj thought for a moment, "Let me check." He possessed her mouth again in a prolonged and deep kiss. "I ... find it exciting and stimulating."

"So I note; see, there are definite advantages to being where we are."

He made an undefinable noise, almost a growl, far back in his throat as he pulled her closer.

After a pleasant interlude, he traced the line of her jaw with an affectionate finger. "I don't know why I wasn't smart enough to keep you when I had you. We always did fit well together."

"Second thoughts? I'll tell you what happened. You were so hot to preserve that sacred blood-line of yours that you didn't pay attention to the important things like compatibility and respect."

"What about your adventures with 'people we both know'? How about compatibility there?" He propped himself up on his elbow and glared at her.

"That was after you moved in with Blondie and started your pater familias role. I was totally faithful to you as long as you didn't start tom-catting around. You've got a nerve expecting me to wait while you got all the complexes worked out of your system. I would have had your damned babies if you'd ever mentioned it." She leapt to her feet and snarled down at him furiously. "Now where are my clothes? Damn, damn, damn ..."

"What's wrong? Are they gone again? I'm innocent this time; I did not throw your clothes away again."

She leaped down two steps and gathered up some soft materials. "Looks like the laundry's been delivered. Here – you get a fresh cassock and I've got another one of those Lulu horrors. At least it's black." She tossed him a robe and began to writhe into the snugly fitting dress. "I'm getting pretty tired of this. I wonder if whoever's running this place gave the shorts and shirt back to your little slavey."

"At least he or she's consistent. My cane and spectacles are never touched and as long as we wear what we're given, there's no interference. And don't mourn that outfit you were wearing; it made you look like Rikku. You make a better Mage. Ready to go see what's up ahead?"

"Why not?" She linked her left arm with his right and caught his hand in hers, "Let's go."

"Would you have had my children?" He asked softly through the veil of hair that screened his right profile.

"Yes." She tightened her hold on his hand.

When they had negotiated the last few wide shallow steps, they were confronted with a sight that was as unexpected as it was daunting. Looming vaguely out of the darkening gloom were the towering remnants of the mighty weapon they had known as Vegnagun.

"I thought it was completely destroyed."

"Yes, I could have sworn I heard it explode as we rushed down these stairs." He nodded his agreement. "Look at it – it's all rusted and eaten away, like it 's been here for centuries instead of just a few years." He reached out with his left hand and easily broke off a sizable piece of what had been the bane of Spira.

"You could dismantle the city of Zanarkand with that hand. Let me try." She grasped a chunk of the weapon only to have it crumple in her fingers. "You're right! It is all corroded, at least the parts down here."

But he was already winding his way through the wreckage to a higher level. Far above them was a faint glow from an area they couldn't yet make out in the obscuring dimness. When Paine caught up with him, he was standing disgustedly before a solid bank of metal, apparently contemplating kicking it with his machina foot.

"Don't do it," she advised. "You'll just end up on your rear and I'll have to pull you back up."

"Then what do you suggest? This stuff isn't rusting; it looks like it's freshly forged." While he talked, he was turning his head looking for another approach. "Ah! This way." He indicated a course to the right, around a mal-formed bulkhead which led to another series of stairs – this time narrow and steep.

Paine planted her hands on her hips and regarded the path. "I don't think we'll be taking any refreshing breaks on this stair-case."

"You're losing your ability to concentrate on the task at hand," he grunted as he hauled himself up the first step.

"Do you object? I don't hear you objecting to my thoughts." she leapt agilely ahead of him. "You're so slow; I fear you've started to rust."

"And your solution is, of course, more activity?" He was now almost a dozen steps behind. "Slow down or I'll throttle you when I catch you."

"Oh, all right. Age must have its privileges."

"I'll show you who's aged. You're asking for it, wench." They looked at one another and laughed. She danced down the intervening treads and dropped a light kiss on his chest. Then, hand in hand, they climbed the remaining steps onto a wider path which tended ever upward.

"At least, no more stairs." Nooj exhaled in relief. "There's got to be an end to this sometime."

"Want to take a break?" She waggled her eyebrows lasciviously. "Or are you too old?"

"Shut up, Paine, and keep climbing. Death has certainly changed you – and for the better, I might add." Nooj suddenly stopped as he rounded a curve. She could see a stronger light reflecting off the lens of his spectacles and casting a greenish glow on his features. "Stay where you are; don't move."

"Why not? What do you see?"

"I'm not sure but it may be dangerous."

"So we're dead – what else can they do to us?" She tried to push pass him but he was immovable.

He did not answer but crept as surreptitiously as he could toward the source of the illumination while continuing to bar her way with his cane. The light upon him grew steadily stronger and began to reveal details of their surroundings as well. They were in the middle of a circular structure of what appeared to be hollow metallic pipes, stretching up until lost in the gloom of the lowering atmosphere. Towards the center of this field of monstrous reeds and high above the surface on which they stood was what looked to be the keyboard of a massive organ. And ensconced on the bench was the figure of a yellow-haired man, outlined in the flickering radiance of a thick swarm of pyre-flies, his hands pounding at the space in front of him. He seemed to be playing the giant instrument which they had immediately recognized as the controls of Vegnagun, but there was no sound. Not a whisper disturbed the heavy silence of the space.

Paine pushed her way under Nooj's arm and hissed, "What's this all about? I thought Yuna sent him."

Her companion nodded, "I think it's Shuyin, too. And where do souls go when they're sent?"

"The FarPlane."

"Right. So we vanquished him on the FarPlane, set him free and sent him – to the FarPlane. Arghhhh! I knew no intelligent force was managing this place. This is the realm of a race of insane fanatics who have found a way to shape eternity to their own ends and none of it makes the slightest sense to a reasonable mind. I'm leaving." He turned as though to start back down.

"Wait! You may be right but I don't think all this is happening by chance. After all, what are the odds that out of all the souls sent here, we should meet only those that have intersected with our own lives? There must be some order however manic. Let's at least talk to him. What else have we got to do?"

He looked at her with a wry smile and raised one brow. "Why not? He may have something interesting to say. Shall we yell at him to get his attention or do you want to clamber up there since I'm obviously unable to do so?"

"Neither." She put two fingers in her mouth and gave a piercing whistle. At his surprised jump, she muttered, "Something Yuna taught me to do. Is it working?"

"Don't know. ... Yes, I think it is."

The figure high above them had paused, hands poised over the ranks of keys, and sat as if frozen in the glare of the pyre-flies. Paine whistled again. Slowly the yellow-haired man turned and, shielding his eyes with a dark-gloved hand, peered into the surrounding dimness. Again, Paine whistled her shrill note.

"Who's there and what do you want from the wretched Shuyin?" The voice was surprisingly high pitched and querulous as though it emerged from a child rather than the man they had encountered during the battle at this site. Nooj and Paine exchanged curious glances.

"Shuyin! I am Nooj. We met before in this place. I am here with Paine, whom you also met. We would talk with you. Will you come down to us?"

"I guess so. You're two of those people who persecuted me, aren't you? You wouldn't leave me alone – always blaming me for everything bad that happened. So now you're dead, are you? Well, I'm glad. I want you to know that. I'm glad you're dead. I hope it hurt a lot when you died. You just wouldn't leave me alone." With that, the musician jumped down from his lofty perch and landed lightly at the base of the structure. "Always blaming me when all I wanted was to have a good death and what I was promised when I got here. Noooo - that couldn't be done, now could it? Where was Lenne? She was supposed to be waiting here for me. But she wasn't, was she? I was all alone so I went back for her and all you people just kept blaming me for everything bad that ever happened for the next thousand years. Do you have any idea how much that builds up? Do you have any idea how many make-rights and fixes I have to do? Noooo – you wouldn't care about that, would you? Of course not. Wait! I remember you!" Shuyin pointed a quivering forefinger at Nooj.

"I thought you might since we were intimately involved at one time."

"I beat you, didn't I? I took you over and lived in your body. And you didn't like it a bit. But that didn't matter. You couldn't throw me out. You were easy – nya-nya-na-nya-nya!"

Paine tugged Nooj's head down and murmured in his ear, "Can't you shut this thing up? He's worse than Brother."

"I'll try. ... Hey, Shuyin, where's Lenne now? She was sent along with you so you could be together."

The yellow haired man looked surprised that he should be asked a question. "Oh, yes, we came here together the second time and wandered around. She didn't have any mistakes to fix so she just followed me around and watched while I did what they made me do. After awhile, she got bored and went somewhere else. She didn't want to stay with me if we couldn't touch or anything. It wasn't my fault; everybody just keeps blaming me for anything that goes wrong. Even Lenne. I was just trying to save her life and because I couldn't she started blaming me and it all went wrong and I don't know how to fix it. I tried to use the Vegnagun after the people put it back together for me but it won't work. No matter how loud I play, nothing happens."

Paine stepped forward, her hand brushing his sleeve. "What do you mean that you and Lenne couldn't touch? You mean you couldn't do this?' She laid her hand against his cheek.

Shuyin struck her hand away with a hysterical scream. "Don't do that! We'll blow up and have to start over again and I can't stand it!" He dropped to the ground, rolling himself into a compact ball. "People can't touch until they finish their punishment. Now, I'll have to start over again. And I can't bear it." He covered his head with his arms, wrapping them close about his ears and closing his eyes as tightly as he could. "Go away! You're making it worse!"

Nooj shrugged and commented, "Looks like a thousand years as a collection of pyre-flies and another few years in this heaven has wiped out what intelligence he might ever have had. He's a burnt out case. A perfect example of what happens when you believe all this nonsense. Look at him – he was a man when we fought him and now he's just a child. A bratty child. Getting younger as we watch. I told you time was out of joint. Let's go."

"No!" Paine assumed her most stubborn posture, legs astride, arms folded across her chest. The effect was somewhat muted by the fact that the dress she wore was intended to project seduction, not decisiveness. "We have to turn it around – make him a man again. We're going to help him. Maybe if we tell him the truth, he can get Lenne back and they can be lovers together on this plane until he finishes his task. I bet he could do that if he had a little help from the woman he's worshipped for a millennium."

"And how do you propose we accomplish this compassionate miracle? She's gone on and Olefer told me you can't come back."

"How much has that father of yours been right about so far? I'm willing to try to salvage this poor fruit-cake if I can and then storm whatever gates we can find to get Lenne back together with him."

"So this is your project for the decade?"

"If necessary – yes."

Nooj sighed and propped himself against a convenient ledge. "Well, have at it."

"Aren't you going to help?"

"What do you want me to do?" He poked idly with his cane at Shuyin who kept drawing himself into an ever more fetal position.

"The first thing I want is for you to stop doing that." She slapped the cane away. "Now help me talk sense to him."

"Want to show him what he's been missing all this time? Come on, Paine, even if you could get him to listen, what makes you think Lenne would want him like this?"

"I'll worry about that when I have him convinced it's not the end of the world. ... You know what I mean," she said through clenched teeth ignoring his unconcealed amusement.

Sep 19, 20049


	4. Chapter IV

I would like to express my appreciation to those who have so kindly reviewed this trifle. It is extremely nice of you to put up with these rambling and more than a little unfocused lines. Since I have received no requests that I ratchet up the rating, I am going to assume that I offended no one and that you are sufficiently broad-minded (or perhaps jaded) not to mind the suggestiveness I mentioned. I promise you that you will not find vulgarisms in this piece – I consider such to be the product of a lack of either imagination or vocabulary. But, I also promise, you will find adults acting adult. Fair enough?

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After - Chapter IV

Paine strolled carefully over to the ball that was the wretched Shuyin and squatted down beside him. "Shuyin, listen to me. I'm not going to hurt you or blame you for anything. Just listen to me."

She was rewarded by the sight of a single eye peering from behind a protective arm. With infinite caution, she stroked the part of his head that was still accessible. "See, nothing happens when I touch you. It's all right. See." She continued to stroke and speak in a slow, soothing voice as though to a frightened animal.

"Shuyin, are you listening? It's not like you think. You can touch other people here. Nothing will happen to you if you touch. See, I'm touching you and nothing's happening. Here, take my hand."

She stretched her fingers toward him and waited. And waited. After a while, she stood up and walked over to Nooj, who had been watching, his face disciplined into an expressionless mask.

"Your turn."

He raised an eyebrow, "Giving up so soon? I thought this was your long-term project."

"I've got him to open an eye and you said you'd help." She didn't try to keep a demanding note out of her voice.

"Only after you threatened me. ... Oh, all right, I was getting bored watching you grovel." He pushed himself away from the ledge and hobbled over to the pathetic figure on the ground. "But you can't expect me to hunker down like you; my left leg doesn't bend that way – thanks to your god." The last four words were muttered under his breath.

"Just do what you can," she hissed, rubbing her cramped back.

Nooj planted himself firmly above the somewhat less tightly coiled creature. "Shuyin, stop acting like a fool. Be a man. You lived in my body for almost three years; didn't you learn anything about courage while you were there? Stop being a little boy. Stand up for yourself!"

At his feet, the crumpled shape started gradually to unfold. Shuyin tuned over and rose to his hands and knees, his head with its shaggy mop of yellow hair lowered toward the surface and slowly swinging back and forth like a metronome.

"I remember you. You were the one who was so scared of living that you went out hunting death. So you finally found it, huh. Is it what you thought it would be? Are you satisfied yet?" He had climbed to his feet and was facing Nooj, his fists clenched at his sides, his voice dropping in register from the childish tenor to a more adult timbre.

Quickly throwing a triumphant glance at Paine, Nooj responded, "It's not about me; it's about you."

"What about me? I am the wretched Shuyin ..." He was falling back again into the querulous nasal drone.

Paine sprang forward, "Stop that! You're a grown man; act like one. Why are you so wretched? ... Lenne's not here with you, that's why. We're going to show you how to get her back."

Nooj murmured from behind her, "Don't make rash promises. We can't be sure and I don't want to be stuck with him for what may well be an eternity."

"You always were a pessimist. Look for a positive outcome for a change."

"It's hard to change the habits of a lifetime. So, now you have his attention, what next?"

Standing between the two men and regarding first one then the other, Paine reflected for a while. "Now, I think it's time to tell some truths."

"To Shuyin, of course, I'm not in denial – au contraire." Nooj assumed a self-satisfied air.

"Of course to Shuyin, you egotistic oaf!" She stamped her foot, forgetting she was not wearing boots. "Ow! That hurt! ... Stop grinning!"

"I'm simply attempting to look pleasant and harmless so as not to unsettle your experiment." Innocence colored his words.

With a totally disgusted countenance, Paine turned back to the wretched figure of Shuyin. "Tell me what happened here after the battle with Vegnagun when Yuna sent you and Lenne. Please. If I understand, maybe I can help."

Shuyin seemed to be trying to decide whether to trust her or not. He looked down and shuffled his (booted) feet in the small stones and dust that littered the ground. At length he appeared to have made up his mind and began, "After the fight, Lenne showed up instead of that woman who looked kind of like her, and we had that short, too short, time together. Then we were here."

"Right here or in the meadow down below?" she asked.

"Oh, in the meadow. And I felt so exposed; anybody could come at me from any direction. So I found the stairs and we came up here. It was safer, you see. Then one of those invisible men came to visit and told us about the ... you know ... the ..."

"The wrongs you had to right?" Paine was gentle.

"Yes, and I had so many. You see, it had been so long and I had done so much." Shuyin pointed to Nooj. "I was supposed to wait for you to show up and tell you how sorry I was I made you do those things when I lived in your body. And you," pointing to Paine, "I need to tell you that I'm sorry I made him shoot you. And there were so many more – it was going to take another thousand years to get it finished."

"What about Lenne?"

"Oh, she was a saint. She hadn't done anything wrong in all that time and she was cleared to go straight on to the FarPlane while I was stuck here."

Nooj, who - in spite of his distaste for the entire situation - had been paying close attention, limped over. "Shuyin, just where do you think you are? And how did Lenne leave you?"

The yellow-haired man snarled, "I'm in the place of atonement where you have to stay until you finish atoning. And what business is it of yours how she left me?"

"Both of you, back off," Paine intervened. "Shuyin, this is the FarPlane, the only FarPlane for Spirans. It's the same place as the one for atoning. Now where was Lenne when you last saw her?"

"This can't be the FarPlane – it's not a nice place and I'm not happy. I'm supposed to be happy on the FarPlane." He pounded his fists on his forehead.

"Stop that! Now, tell me when you last saw Lenne." Paine grasped his wrists and held them.

"We were up at the keyboard and she said she wanted to check on something and went down the stairs. I followed as far as I could and couldn't find her so I knew she had gone on without me. You see, she didn't have any apologies to make and after a year or a century or however long it was, she got bored and made that excuse and went on." He pulled away from her grip.

"I thought you two were so much in love." Paine stood to one side in her usual position with her arms folded and a slight scowl on her brow.

"We were ... are ... but there wasn't anything we could do except look at each other." Shuyin's head had resumed its rhythmic sway.

She suddenly saw it all and burst into gales of laughter. "You poor chump, did you even try to touch her, to kiss her?"

"Oh, no. That invisible person said ... We just thought that in, well, here ... being dead and all ... well, you just don't ..."

Nooj interjected, "Did someone tell you that or did you assume it?"

"The invisible person ... It seemed the right thing to think, so we ..."

Paine lifted her lip in a sneer. "You spent eternity in close proximity to your love and never even tried ...?"

Shuyin looked from the contemptuous woman to the impassive man in confused fury. He watched as Paine laid her hand possessively on Nooj's right shoulder and comprehension slowly began to surface in his eyes.

"You mean ... you two ... Lenne and I ... we could?" He let out a prolonged howl of purely animal rage and began bashing his head against the dusty surface of the arena. Nooj caught him by the hair and pulled him upright.

"This does no good. You can't change what's already happened. You can only progress. Go look for her and settle your debts on the way."

Shuyin shrieked at him, "It's gonna take another five hundred years for me to get it all done and I don't know where she's gone."

"I think I know what happened," Paine interjected. "When she realized that you were going to hide out up here on top of the world in the gloom and never going to make an effort to change things by paying off what you owed, she probably decided to go hunting some answers herself. I'll bet she was trying to find out just what you could do on this plane and either learned what she needed to know and can't find her way back up here again or is still looking for somebody to ask. Since she's almost certainly smarter than you – I bet she has her answers and has been looking for you all this time while you've been holed up being 'wretched'."

Shuyin frowned in thought. "You think so?" He turned to Nooj, "What do you think?"

"Paine's idea sounds as right as anything else. What have you got to lose by believing that? You're not getting anywhere pouting on a bench and pounding on a silent keyboard."

"The keyboard's not silent; you just can't hear it."

"Can you?"

"Well ... no. But that's because I'm not worthy. I'll hear it when I am ready to rejoin Lenne."

Paine let out a scream of fury. "Haven't you heard a word we've said? Lenne is still here on this Plane. You haven't looked for her, being too much of a wimp to try. Do you want Nooj and me to do your job for you and lead your love back to your side?"

"I don't know what to do. Nobody ever told me how to do things in this world." Shuyin was near tears again.

"Another heathen!" Nooj expostulated. "And this one's not worth the keeping. Listen, you miserable worm, nobody except a priest knows how to maneuver in this place. You have to try things and see if they work. If they don't then you have to try something else. How do you think it will look to Lenne if Paine and I have to fetch her back for you? If you truly love and want her – go get her and take her!" He loomed over the tremulous man/boy with a threatening air, apparently ready to lift his cane and thrash the wretched Shuyin.

"Don't scare him again." Paine put her arms around the trembling creature and patted his back. "Now, now, he won't hurt you. Just think about what we've said and let's see if you can go look for Lenne. Now, think. You can't make your atonement by staying here where none of your victims are and you won't find Lenne up here, so you might as well go down and see who you run into. The meadow seems to be the place for most encounters. Start by making your amends to Nooj and me. I'll forgive you and so will he." She ignored the snort from behind her. "Then go down the stairs and start walking."

"Wh – where?"

Paine drew back like a snake readying to strike, "It doesn't matter, you incompetent ninny. In our experience, if you keep walking long enough you'll meet whoever you need to meet. And when you find Lenne, grab her and do this..." She flung her arms around him and kissed him hard and long. "All right, that's enough. Shuyin, stop that!" She slapped his hand away from her breast. "I think you've got the idea; now go find Lenne."

"Can I go along with you, just for a while?" He had begun whimpering and tugging at her dress.

Nooj, who had been observing the actions with a certain sardonic humor, answered for Paine, "No. You can't depend on others to meet your responsibilities for you. You must go by yourself. Paine and I have already reached an equilibrium and don't need your problems unsettling us. When you locate Lenne, if you act the man, you and she will find your own balance. And don't forget – there is no ban on love in this place. It's not a crime to seek happiness. Don't pay any attention to those fanatics who would try to convince you that pleasure is wrong – they're in deep denial about the realities of existence and are bigger fools than you."

When he turned toward the exit from the arena of the pipes, he saw Paine watching him with a look of awe on her face. "I've never heard you talk like that in all the years we've known one another. You've always been either despondent or cynical depending on whether you were alive or dead. When did you become a philosopher?"

He took her by the arm and steered her away from the forlorn figure of Shuyin. "I've not changed. You've learned to listen. That's what I've been saying all along. Shuyin, start down those stairs!" This last was tossed carelessly over his shoulder as they began their trek from the old battleground.

"Should be easier going down," Paine said. "Do you think Shuyin will come behind us?"

"Better behind us than beside us. I don't know if he'll come but I wasn't going to waste any more time trying to give him a spine transplant." Nooj was finding it more difficult to descend than to climb, at least on this steeply sloping narrow path. His cane kept trying to skitter off the rounded stones that littered the way and, without sensation in his left foot, it was not easy to maintain balance. He stopped and sat down on a convenient flat rock alongside the path. "Poor little idiot. That's religion for you. Always messing things up."

Paine perched at his side. "What are you talking about?"

"That pair of stupid credulous cretins thinking anything that gave them pleasure was wrong and forbidden on the FarPlane. They've wasted too much time and suffered too much and all for nothing."

"You should talk – you've spent your entire adult life trying to die."

"That's true enough but I didn't avoid the few good things life offered while I was still mortal. You, of all women, should be aware of that."

She sat with a faint smile on her face and a far away look in her eyes remembering the pleasures they had shared. "Well, you have me there."

"Not to put too fine a point on it, I've had you just about everywhere." He said with a reminiscent curl to his lip.

"Nooj, you can squeeze more meanings out of a phrase than any other person I've ever known." She laughed somewhat tentatively.

"That's because I know a lot of words and enjoy them." He draped his arm over her shoulder and patted her fondly. "And you were never much of a talker before you died. Don't fret about it. What really infuriates me is the actions of all these religious fanatics rushing around trying to suck the joy out of existence on both sides of the grave. They won't be content until they've turned everyone alive or dead into exactly the sort of dismal, self-hating, dictatorial monsters they are. They want to churn all the disparate colors of the universe into the same shade of dirty grey, their preferred hue."

"I've never heard you talk so passionately about anything as you do about this."

"That's because I feel strongly about it. I was reared a heathen, found my purpose in the pursuit of death and now am discovering something else," he drew her closer. "And I'm disgusted when I see other people barred from that adventure by the iron gates of a religion of fear. There's no freedom for believers in that faith. Paine, be grateful for the fact you seemed to have escaped their traps."

She burrowed her head against his neck. "There still feels something wrong about your reasoning."

"Then argue with me; we have all eternity to settle the matter." He looked down into her eyes with great seriousness, then suddenly blinked. "Oh god! I've just remembered! The Elite Guard! Do you suppose there's an alternate path down this thing?"

Paine hooted with glee, the meditative mood broken, "You, the great Undying Deathseeker, scared of a bunch of affectionate women. Good thing none of your enemies knew your one weakness while you were still alive. Want me to protect you again?"

"Don't be dense, Paine. 'Affectionate?' They love me so much they could eat me up – literally! Maybe we should wait above their camp until they're asleep or out hunting and sneak by."

"You forget there's no sleep here. And no hunting that I know of. And, with that machina leg, you're worse at sneaking than running, so forget that. It's straight through the center of the lines, captain. Or should I say Meyvn?'

"You're not funny." They had reached the first of the lily-pad stair treads. "It's not much further. Do you suppose they have sentries posted?"

Sep 25, 20048


	5. Chapter V

Once again, thank those of you who are sticking with me and, most especially, those of you who take the time and effort to review. It is most gratifying to hear that I am able to please you. Since this is my holiday piece, I hope you don't mind that I am gleefully bashing those inhabitants of the Spiran World who irritate me past endurance. It's just in fun, you know, and I'm really not a vicious person. ... Would you care to purchase the Causeway at Bevelle? I can give you a real bargain.

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**After**

Chapter V

Paine and Nooj hesitated on the edge of the fourth stair from the bottom of the winding staircase. Paine eased herself down to the third and lay prone, her head hanging over the edge, alert for any sound or movement. Somewhere, on or about ground level, was a gathering of women Nooj was not eager to meet again.

She cursed softly as the skirt of her dress wrapped around her legs and all but immobilized her as she attempted to crawl nearer the cave where the Elite Guard was headquartered. She would have given a century of eternity to have her leggings and shorts back. Nooj had descended to the third step and remained there, leaning on his cane, his body bent forward to catch any information she might convey. She gestured him on. There was as yet no sign of the women who had dedicated themselves to the defense of their Meyvn.

"Let's go down another step and if they come out, you can run interference while I get away," he suggested.

"Probably won't work. You aren't fast enough."

"Well, damn it! What do you suggest? They'll consume me."

"Don't worry, Meyvn. I'll beat them off. Like I did last time. Have you got your silver tongue ready to calm the beasts?"

"Sarcasm does not become you, Madame. Let's get out of here."

"Wait a minute, let me have the lacings from your cassock."

"Why?"

"To tie up this damned dress. It keeps tripping me."

She took the long tough cords he handed her and kilted up the full skirts to free her legs.

Nooj complained, "How am I supposed to keep this thing from falling off?"

"It would probably slow them down if it did. ... Hold it together with your hand. You're sounding more like Shuyin the closer we get to these women; do they have some sort of intelligence suppressing effect on you?"

He ignored her and continued down the broad flat flight. As his left foot touched the last level, he saw the first of the band of women emerging from beneath the steps, creeping out of the low cave which sheltered them. With a supreme effort, he hurled himself down the last riser and - fell flat on his face. In a moment, they were on him, shielding him with their bodies as though he were under attack from a horde of fiends.

"Meyvn! You're back! You're safe her and we'll defend you." The impassioned women chanted in an improbable chorus.

Paine leapt into the fray screeching a random war cry at the top of her considerable volume. At first, the Elite Guard were frozen by the sound but quickly recovered and continued their demented efforts to protect their idol.

Nooj had begun to pull himself free during the brief hiatus but was promptly again submerged under a heap of adoring bodies. There seemed to be an endless number of them as they continued to pile on, crushing him beneath their well-intentioned protective mass. He felt like a pet hugged nearly to asphyxiation by a loving mob of children.

Like a Valkyrie, Paine strode into battle. She wrapped one fist around a mass of flowing hair and violently threw the woman hard against the stairs, momentarily stunning her. Then with a flurry of chopping blows, she began to disentangle the others. Only a few tried to fight back; their specialty seemed to be passively interposing their bodies between that of their beloved and any perceived attacker. It didn't take too long for the Warrior woman to clear the field. She extended a hand to the fallen Nooj and hauled him to his feet.

"We'd better get out of here before it occurs to them that I'm the enemy and I'm only one," she gasped.

Nooj was shaken but intact. "Next time, I'm planning on being a misogynist. Maybe then I can bring myself to hit one of them."

"Don't talk; keep moving." Paine tugged him along at a somewhat rapid pace.

"I'm moving as fast as I can. Remember, I'm not exactly suited for racing." They soon left the darkly looming presence of the stair to Vegnagun behind them and were in the outskirts of a peculiar forest which bordered on the meadow.

Around them rose the slim birch-like boles of young trees with leaves of amber, ruby and emerald – all glowing as though illuminated from within. There was no underbrush, only the trees rising from a dense carpet of spongy, yielding moss which was occasionally starred with tiny white flowers. The air was fresh with a faint fragrance of newly bruised citrus while spears of light pierced the shadows of the forest and revealed that it looked to go on for further than they could see. There was no obvious path, just the carpet of green stretching in all directions until it was lost in a misty glowing distance. They had advanced several hundred yards into this place before noticing that the meadow lay behind.

"All right. We can stop now. Those women don't seem willing to move far from their base. They only followed us a short way. And there's no sign of Shuyin, either." Paine leaned against the slender trunk of a golden leafed tree and crossed her arms.

"That damned fool of a whiner is probably still at the top of the stairs trying to get the courage to start down. ... Before you make another scene, thank you for saving me from my defenders again. Now can I have my lacings back? This thing was never meant to be worn without them." Nooj was having difficulty keeping the garment on his shoulders.

She bent to untie the cords and let the crumpled fabric fall back around her ankles. "If you insist. I always thought you liked to show off your chest. You might not know but that broad, smooth chest was the first thing that drew me to you back in our Crimson Squad days."

"So glad to know my bait worked as intended but I prefer to choose the amount I display, not have to clutch my clothes together like some virgin in danger of criminal assault."

"And Yevon knows you're no virgin. Want to rest?"

He threaded the lacings through their loops and tied them at his throat with an air of relief. "Is that another of your suggestive proposals?"

"Take it as you like." She sank down on the soft springy moss. "I'm tired; I did all the work back there."

"So you did." He dropped down beside her. "Maybe a short break would refresh us. ... I hope my next costume continues to have lacings."

She breathed into his ear, "And my next one is a size bigger."

"Some shoes or boots would be nice."

She pinched him, "Stop talking and pay attention to what you're doing."

He obeyed with a dedication that made her cry out in delight. After a thoroughly refreshing episode, they lay stretched on the moss, once again content with one another and themselves. Nooj looked around him. "Wonder what this place is? Did you notice it before we were in it? I didn't."

Paine, her head nestled in the place his neck met his right shoulder, replied dreamily. "No. I was too busy checking on the progress of your admirers. I think I remember feeling this surface under my feet; it's different from the meadow. But it has to still be part of the FarPlane. There's no place left to go once you're here."

"True. Not until you decide to go on to the higher planes." He had dislodged her and pushed himself up to a seated position. "Neither one of us has made that choice yet. So we must be still in this so-called Heaven. Or some part of it and I don't see any end to it in either direction."

"Do you see any clothes?"

"There's a pile of something to the right that doesn't look like foliage. That's probably them. Want to go fetch?"

She leapt to her feet in a single graceful move. "Sure." In a brief time she was back with the usual armload of clothing. "Here. You've got lacings again. And I've got ... hooks! No more struggling into a tight Lulu-dress. I've got hooks and can just pull it on!" She matched her words to the deed. "Oh god, I can't hook it up the back. Damn! Who designs these things anyway?" She twisted futilely before finally giving up and turning to him.

"Hook me up," she demanded.

"What would you do if you didn't have me here to do this?"

"If you weren't here, I wouldn't need clothes. I'd stroll across the landscape au naturel."

"I don't mind if you want to do that."

"If I did, you couldn't keep your hands off me."

"I beg to contradict you. Who's always suggesting that we take a break or try a little distraction?"

"I never hear you refusing." Her eyes shot red sparks at him.

They looked at one another for a few minutes before erupting into laughter and re-discovering just how soft and springy the moss really was.

"That was nice," she giggled. "Now, hook me up and no diversions."

He reached up to engage the small catches. "Suck in. I can't quite get this one to latch."

"Oof!" she inhaled as the bodice squeezed her chest. "I thought I ordered one size larger this time. Oh ..."

"What's wrong?"

"I got a sudden itch in my brain. Something's trying to get my attention." She was puzzled.

"You've got a Call. Look around until you see a glowing curtain. Somebody still alive wants to speak with you." He was certain.

Paine furrowed her brow. "But who? I didn't leave anyone with any claim on my attention."

"Most likely Baralai. That cotton headed sanctimonious twit never knows when to give up. Go see. Right over there, behind you. Go to the curtain and hold out a wrist. An invisible guide – they're called Gatekeepers – will take it and lead you to your visitor. I'll wait for you here."

Paine, with some trepidation, stretched our her arm as she approached the undulating curtain of light. In spite of the warning Nooj had given her, she jumped when cool fingers wrapped around her wrist.

"Don't be alarmed." A soothing voice calmed her. "I'm a Gatekeeper, here to lead you to your friend."

Through the barrier, which felt to Paine as though she were passing through a current of energized air, into the vast reception area and on to one of the giant swirling columns which afforded a sense of privacy to those meeting, she was drawn by the unseen guide.

"Go right through there. Remember, you cannot touch and have only a short time to say what you need to say."

"I wonder if that's what gave Shuyin the idea he and Lenne could only look," she thought as she slipped into the circular room.

Across the pearly table, leaning his head in his hands as he waited, sat Baralai. Sensing her presence, he looked up and leapt to his feet with the ingrained courtesy that had always characterized him.

"Paine! My dear! I came as quickly as I heard. Why did you do this? Did he mean that much to you?"

"Sit down, Baralai. What are you doing here? We were finished long ago. ... Oh, by the way, how long have I been dead?" She suddenly remembered what Nooj had said about disjointed time.

"I heard about it today. Yuna sent word to all of us when she found your body on the shore. Why did you do it?" He looked tired and distraught. "Weren't your friends enough to make you want to live? You weren't a Deathseeker all along, were you?"

She was surprised by the question and unsure of her answer. "I don't think so. No. Look, Baralai, this is no time to be tactful. I don't owe you an explanation but since you've come all this way ... I've been besotted with Nooj since our Crimson Squad days. You know we were an item back then. And when he died, I decided it was my chance to get him alone and rekindle the blaze. I figured I'd be ahead of the competition here."

"You put a dagger in your chest merely on the chance of getting back together with Nooj?"

"When you strip it down to the essentials, that's about the gist of it. The way you put it makes it sound stupid, but it wasn't. It was the logical thing to do." She nodded and folded her hands on the table between them. "Do me a favor and tell the others that it's all right. Nooj and I are together again and it's all right. Tell them to make sure LeBlanc is behaving. Nooj worries about his sons. And don't be concerned about me – I'm where I want to be."

"Are you sure? You look strange; you never used to dress like that." He was finally able to take in the entirety of her aspect, instead of just her face.

"You mean this Mage outfit? There's something here that has a definite idea of what its subjects should wear and replaces garments every time you take them off." Hearing the meaning in her own words, she blushed and hastened on. "You'll notice I don't have my boots either." She stuck out a bare foot for his attention.

Baralai belatedly understood the import of what she had said and flamed a scarlet that seemed to project actual heat. "I didn't think ... that is, I never considered ... Oh hell, I don't know what I'm trying to say."

"You didn't think there were any physical relationships on this side, right? That's what Shuyin and Lenne thought too. Yes, we've met Shuyin – he's a sad case. But you're all wrong. Very little is forbidden and what you're thinking about is not on the no-no list. Come to think of it, I don't know what is forbidden here. Existence, or whatever this is, is pretty free from restrictions. Not that I'm encouraging a raft of suicides, you understand." Paine felt herself running out of things to say to the gloomy man facing her and longed for the return of the Gatekeeper.

"You've met Shuyin as well as Nooj. Is he with you too?"

"No, he's looking for Lenne – it's a long story and we don't have time for me to tell it. Things are pretty complicated on this plane and you'll have to wait 'til you get here to understand it all." She hesitated, thinking that, as a priest, Baralai would have a head start on both understanding and functioning on the FarPlane. "Oh, you'll do fine when it's your time to show up. Are the others doing well?" She was nattering, desperately making conversation and heard the bell-like tones of the Gatekeeper with a sense of great relief.

"Time, lady."

"Goodbye, Baralai. Thanks for the visit." She was almost stumbling over her skirts as she rushed away.

"I'll be back." The Praetor called from behind her.

When Paine caught her breath, she was again in the jeweled forest with no sign of the ominous curtain for as far as she could see. With a sigh, she let her legs collapse and coiled up on the mossy floor.

Nooj, who had been sprawled nearby, inched over to her and took her in his arms, cuddling her like a child. "It's all done now. Was it Baralai?"

"Yes."

"I knew it! That whey-faced loon can't bear to know that you're out of his reach. What did he want?" Nooj bared his teeth.

"Don't start with that. He wanted to know why I killed myself. Accused me of being a Deathseeker." She nuzzled against his chest.

"That's rich. So he had to find some excuse for your not rushing back to his arms when I died. I plan to strangle him when he gets over here." He flexed his left hand which was exceedingly lethal.

Paine became breathless with laughter. "You worry about sending Shuyin from the FarPlane to the FarPlane and now you're going to kill Baralai once he's dead. Nooj, I adore you!" She clutched him as though to merge her body with his. "One minute you're a philosopher and the next you're a barbarian. I'll never get bored with you beside me."

He bent over her protectively, "I'm not going anywhere. Shall we see what else this forest has to offer or would you prefer to rest awhile?"

With a little gurgle, she rubbed her formerly spiky hair on his chin, "Neither. Could you just hold me for a while and let me know you're there?"

He wrapped himself around her and gently eased the both of them back to the soft pillows of the moss. She felt the comforting presence of the machina arm and leg pressing against her. She was with Nooj; she was home.

09/28/048


	6. Chapter VI

Greetings to my faithful readers and reviewers. Currently, I am nearing the end of what will almost certainly be the last chapter of this folly. I can't think when I've enjoyed writing a story more. As you might note, I have taken off my metaphorical corsets, like the drunken prince in "The Great Race", and just let the words flow. I shall not say how many chapters are yet to come because that is always subject to change. However, I will say that I continue to be grateful for and humbled by your interest and comments. Thank you all.

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**After**

Chapter VI

Paine opened her eyes with a start. They had fallen asleep. Asleep. For the first time since they had arrived on the FarPlane, they had slept. Nooj had said sleep was 'another of those luxuries missing from this so-called Heaven, like food and drink' . Well, he was wrong and not for the first time. He was still sleeping, his spectacles askew on a face as open and innocent as that of a child. She looked at him for a long time. It was rare to see him like this, without his defenses deployed. She thought this must have been how he looked when he was young, before she met him, before he had fallen in love with death.

He was still wrapped around her, caging her with the prosthetic arm and leg, making her feel secure and cherished. She was reluctant to wake him, wanting to hold on to this enchanted time for so long as possible. When he woke, he would be his mocking self again. That would be all right too but it would not have the sweetness of this moment.

She must have made a move or else he felt her gaze upon him, for his lids raised and he focused on her face without surprise. "We slept? I didn't think it was possible in this place. How do you feel?"

"Strange. It's peculiar to wake up in a place without sleep. Did you notice we have our clothes?"

"That's because we didn't take them off."

"Oh. For a minute there I thought we'd either pleased or offended whoever's in charge of wardrobe for this production." She snuggled closer to him, not wanting to disturb the dream-like trance that still possessed her.

He, less sentimental than she, turned over on his back and looked up at the sky between the canopies of the glowing trees. "Still in the forest, I see. Did you notice the sky appears almost pea-green in this section of Heaven?"

Paine sighed and sat up, tilting her head back, "So it does. And is it my imagination or are these trees brighter and aren't there more colors?"

"I think you're right. The set designer must be re-doing the whole thing. Well, shall we be on our way? Are you over the visit with Baralai?" He accepted her hand as he scrambled to his feet.

She hit him lightly on the shoulder. "Don't start with that again. I was over him long ago. I honestly don't know why he chased me here."

"Ah, but I do." He caught her by the waist and, pulling her nearer, kissed her with conviction. "He's remorseful over letting you escape. You do have that effect on your admirers."

"Stop talking and start walking," she muttered into his chest, her arms locked around his neck.

"Immediately – when you unhand me, woman."

They stood among the delicate trees, holding one another for a long time, as time is understood in the place without time.

The decision as to which direction to go through the forest was made by the simple method of just facing a random clearing and putting one foot before the other. When all ways are the same, there is nothing to be gained by agonizing over the making of a choice.

It was pleasantly otherworldly strolling among the silvery trunks of the graceful trees beneath the brilliant foliage. The light passing through the leaves cast stained-glass patterns on the moss underfoot and the two people wandering hand in hand as through a kaleidoscope. The temperature was as mild as that of a perfect spring day back on Spira and the delicately perfumed air completed the effect of an idealized Paradise.

They had been walking for a considerable time without speaking, content in their companionship. Their progress was necessarily slow due to Nooj's inability to move at a greater speed. After a while, Paine became impatient and ranged a short distance ahead.

"Nooj! There's a brook over here!" She called back to him.

Shortly they both stood on the bank of a purling stream, observing a golden liquid chuckle its way toward an unknown destination.

"Shall we follow it?" Nooj asked almost to himself.

"Let's. Maybe it leads somewhere interesting."

This time the decision as to which way to go took on portentous importance in this world of no decisions. Nooj argued that upstream could only lead to the headwaters, probably a seepage or small spring while downstream might bring them to something new. Paine found that convincing so the final choice was for downstream. After a hundred paces of so, Paine gathered up her skirts and waded into the liquid.

"Oh! It's warm! No – it's cool. Nooj, it feels lovely! The bottom is like finely packed sand on the beach at Besaid and the water – or whatever it is – is warm and cool at the same time." A slight frown appeared between her brows, "I can't really tell but it feels lovely. I wish you could wade with me. Want to try?"

"Better not. I might rust. Actually, my foot has been showing some signs ..." He lifted the hem of his cassock and she could se that the machina foot was discolored with an odd scaly pattern spreading from the sole up to the ankle pivot. "It's been getting more difficult to move it as time passes."

"When did that happen?" She was immediately alert.

"I noticed it not long after we woke from that strange sleep."

"Then why didn't you say something? For god's sake, Nooj, we're supposed to level with each other." She was almost crying in her frightened anger.

"Easy, Paine. You know I'm not accustomed to complaining about personal problems. Old habits are hard to break. Besides, there's nothing to be done about it; there aren't any Healers here, not even any Al Bhed technicians."

She dropped to her knees on the stream bank and began frantically scrubbing at the apparently malignant growth, first with her skirt, dampened in the liquid of the creek, and then with her fingernails.

"Don't do this, Paine. It's not worth it."

"I'm not going to let something happen to you without at least trying ... I think it's coming off! ... Here. Where I wet it. Nooj, step in the water, please ..."

He did as she asked and she knelt in the flow, continuing to rub at the scale with her now soaked dress.

"Yes! It's going away. Look!"

"I can't feel anything and you know my vision ..."

"Well, I can see and it's completely gone! What is this stuff anyway?" She scooped up a palmful of the liquid. "It smells like water." She inserted a tentative tongue. "It tastes like water. But it's gold and it got rid of that mess on your foot. What do you think it is?"

Nooj tasted the fluid in the hand she held out to him. "I agree; it tastes like water. But it's acting like that material the Al Bhed put in the shower they designed for me back on Spira. You remember, the one that cleaned my natural skin as well as the machina with no harm to either. We might as well refer to it as water since that's what it mainly is, that and a few things the Al Bhed never explained."

She nodded sagely, "Stands to reason that with so many Al Bhed dying some of them must be working on engineering problems over here. Well, that settles it – you can wade with me."

"I suppose so," he stepped into the water. "We've getting extremely damp and bedraggled."

She stooped and, picking up a double handful of liquid, splashed him from his spectacles to the already soaked bottom of his robe. "Just another excuse to send out for fresh clothes."

"You're a shameless hussy ... however, there's often merit in your ideas." With a quick movement, he swept her out of the stream and deposited her on the mossy bank.

A while later, she looked happily up at him, "What do you suppose would happen if one of us got a Call while we were otherwise engaged?"

"What a thought! Your mind does run on strange tracks. I suspect it wouldn't be permitted to happen. Remember time is malleable here and I imagine the Gatekeepers have a Call waiting function. Although truthfully, I don't know. Let's hope we never have to find out. Why? Are you expecting another summons from your former lover?" He ground his teeth.

"No. I was thinking about LeBlanc; she hasn't butted in recently – if recently still means anything." Paine fluttered her eyelashes with limited success.

He laughed at her. "Stop trying to do that. You never were much of a flirt. Your greatest successes came when you tackled your prey and pinned them down – like you did me."

"Oh, yes, you put up such a struggle," she poked him in the ribs and stretched. "Guess I'd better go get us something to wear. Hope whoever didn't do away with the hooks again. And gave me a size larger."

When she trotted back with the fresh garments and dropped them across his body, still supine on the moss, he lazily inquired, "Are they to your satisfaction this time?"

"Yes, I think so. There is a bit of green braid on my dress, still hooks and the skirt is a little shorter, thank Yevon. And it's not as tight in the top!" She made the prayer gesture, bowing to an unseen deity, then dancing a few steps. "How about yours?"

Nooj had observed her mock devotion with a frown and a disgusted grunt. He shook out the cassock. "Much the same as before. Like yours, a little shorter both in the length and the sleeves. Maybe next time, we'll get boots or shoes."

"Shall we try?" She laughed as she presented her back for his assistance in fastening her dress.

"I've already said you're a hussy. Now, I have to dredge up an entirely new set of words to describe your appetites." He quickly completed the task. "I'm getting good at this. Practice. In the meantime, I think we should seriously consider how we're going to find Lenne."

"I thought you had decided to leave that to Shuyin."

"I had but I really doubt he's capable of even making it down the stairs and you did tell him we'd do what we could. That makes it one of your jobs to complete before we can leave this level. Oh, hell... now who?"

"You just get a Call?"

"Yes. Do you see the curtain anywhere about? It's probably LeBlanc again – maybe she's had the boys this time."

But it was not LeBlanc. When he had passed into the private meeting room, Nooj was astonished to find Baralai waiting for him, standing on the other side of the table, his clenched fists planted firmly on the glossy surface.

"What in the hell are you Calling me for?" the dead man demanded with some justification.

"I want to know how you explain Paine killing herself." Baralai's normally dark face had bleached to an alarming sickly pallor. "She had no reason to want to die at her age."

Nooj paused for a moment. "How long have Paine and I been dead?"

"Why? Don't you know? She's been gone for a week and a day and you one day longer. Are you trying to change the subject?" The Praetor was showing signs of anger and his color was returning.

"No. I wondered because time doesn't seem to have the same duration or direction on both sides of the divide. How's LeBlanc?"

"Oh, Yevon! I can't stand this!" Baralai ran his hands through the stiff spikes of his pale hair. "I come all this way to demand satisfaction about Paine and you want to talk about another of your women. Have you no shame?"

"Not much. Not here. And certainly not on this subject. How is LeBlanc?"

The other sank into the chair behind him and buried his face in his hands. "She's fine. Showing quite a lot. Complaining but well cared for. Now that your selfish concerns have been eased ... what do you intend to do about Paine?"

Nooj leaned back in his chair and laughed until he could no longer catch his breath. Baralai had never, in his wildest fantasies, thought he would see his grim and taciturn teammate laugh like that.

Finally, "Only a religious could think of such a question. 'What am I going to do about Paine?'" he weakly choked out another snort of laughter. "What do you want me to do? Abandon her so her purity won't be compromised by my vile presence? Leave her to fend for herself, lorn in this unfamiliar world? Baralai, she's dead – and so am I. We're traveling through the FarPlane together both for convenience and because we enjoy one another. You can't have her back no matter how hard you beg or how much you threaten. Why not take up with LeBlanc? She's alive and unattached and, when my sons are born, she'll be free to make whatever arrangements she wishes. She's not a bad person once you get past that shell she uses to keep people at a distance. And once you get past those goons she keeps around for vanity's sake."

Baralai was nearly speechless with fury. He had stood up again at the first mention of Paine's death and was leaning over the table hissing at Nooj like an enraged Madagascar cockroach. "How dare you! I'm not looking for your hand-offs! I love Paine; she and I were building a good life together before we had that small quarrel which would have been patched up if you hadn't chosen just that moment to die. Leave her alone – I'll be joining her soon. When I get Bevelle back on the right track, I'm planning to jump off the high tower and follow my love."

"You're really a revolting hypocrite, Praetor. You know you won't kill yourself; you're too much in love with your own importance as the great holy man. If you don't want LeBlanc, there must be hundreds of potential or actual nuns who would offer themselves as the brides of the Praetor. Go home and practice good works; you're boring me."

"You unspeakable heretic, you have no right to Paine. You threw it all away and don't deserve any joy on that side. I notice you're still a cripple." Baralai smirked self-righteously, "The decent ones who pass into the FarPlane are perfected in body and mind. What does that tell you?"

"That you worship and promulgate the most inadequate, small-minded, vicious deity ever conceived by the collective stupidity of man. And I'm a heathen, not a heretic; I never believed. Goodbye, Baralai." Nooj pushed back the chair and stalked with what scornful dignity he could muster from the room.

"I was just coming to get you," the familiar basso of the Gatekeeper rang in his ear. "Have a little spat with your guest? Happens all the time. Trifling failures of communication."

Back in the forest, Nooj drew a deep calming breath and leaned against a convenient tree trunk. "Come on, Paine. Let's find Lenne."

"Ah, I was right – it was LeBlanc. What did she want?" Paine took his hand.

"It was Baralai and he wants you. He ordered me to stay away from you until he can screw his courage to the sticking point and kill himself at which time he will descend upon this place and take you away from my shameful, corrupting influence." In retrospect, it all seemed terribly funny again.

"What! Has he lost his mind? What makes him think I want him back. I told him I was happy with you and I told you that my affair with him ended long ago. What's he going on about?"

"Just what I told you. He's blaming me for your death and has deluded himself into thinking you were on the point of returning to his embraces when, in a fit of lunacy, you decided to follow me here. ... Let it go; it's not worth the thought."

Paine huffed and fumed for a few yards further then dropped the topic, seduced by the beauty of her surrounding and the comfort of her new dress.

Keeping the murmuring brook on their left, they continued to walk through the exquisite, if somewhat tedious, forest until they became aware of a strengthening glow up ahead.

Nooj spoke first, "I believe we may be coming to the end of this place and the beginning of somewhere else. Your eyes are better than mine; can you make out any details?"

"I think you're right. It looks like some sort of drop-off up there." Paine shielded her eyes and squinted.

As they approached the light, they heard the increasingly loud sound of water falling as from a great height.

Nooj stopped and looked at his companion. "Could it possibly be that we have walked around the entire circumference of this place and are now at the top of the falls we bathed in when we first got here? That would explain why the falls didn't affect the machina. If so, this is a cramped and limited afterworld. I told you this so-called Heaven was a fraud."

But Paine was not listening. Her gaze was fixed on a small figure seated on the ground before a backdrop of rising mist. "Nooj! I think that's Lenne. Can you see her yet?"

"Just barely but I'll trust your judgment. What's she doing here?"

"Just sitting there, looking decorative. Why do you ask? What are any of us doing anywhere for that matter? She has as much reason to be there as we do to be here."

He chucked her under the chin, "You're nattering, my dear. Let's go see what we can do with her."

10/04/048


	7. Chapter VII

Before anyone complains that I mischaracterize the voice of Lenne, please note the following. I have never played any RPG (or any other video game) with the sound on. Since I greatly prefer to program music to my personal taste, I have never heard the voice of Lenne or that of any other figure. As a concession to my imagination, I have assigned Lenne the voice her image leads me to believe she would have.

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**After**

Chapter VII

"Don't you think it's the least bit odd that we keep meeting the people we need to meet in this place?" Paine asked as they walked toward the woman seated in the distance.

"No. As you told Shuyin, just keep walking and you'll meet whoever you're meant to meet. What is tugging at my mind is the suspicion that everything that happens here is intended to teach us something. I'm not at all sure I like that; it's like going to a graduate school for the soul." Nooj stared at the moss underfoot and planted his cane carefully in order not to trip as he concentrated on what he was saying.

She turned a sardonic look on him and drawled, "It's not the usual thing to hear you talk about souls. Have you become a believer, then? After all your brave talk?"

"Certainly not. I use the words understandable by other people. Would you prefer I say 'that part of the persona which is distinguishable from the physical yet not clearly defined as a separate entity and may or may not be susceptible to manipulation by the mind of others or the self or a problematic supernatural force'? No, when I say 'soul' I consider it just another name for whatever endures. And to continue - what I resent is that we are being forced in this school to learn whatever the guiding force here wants us to accept as truth." He limped onward with an aggrieved air. "I prefer to choose my own course of study."

She regarded him curiously for the moment and then turned her attention back to the fast approaching end of the forest. Shortly, they had emerged onto a swathe of grass, as close-cut as a putting green, running along the edge of a great chasm into which innumerable streams like the one they had followed plunged, sending up an endless cloud of fine mist. Seated perilously near the lip was a delicate female figure with long brown hair, dressed in a filmy blue costume that seemed to melt into the vapor behind her. She was posed pensively gazing at her hands loosely folded in her lap and did not appear to have taken any notice of their advent.

Paine caught his arm, "Be careful and don't startle her. We don't want her to fall."

"Are you sure it's Lenne? I only saw her briefly and that from a distance."

"Looks like her; you remember, she looked like Yuna only with slanting eyes and a narrower face."

"I didn't notice. Frankly, Yuna always looked like every second woman on Spira to me. You speak to her first; your voice is softer."

Paine moved toward the oblivious woman with the care one would use approaching a fawn or a bird. "Hello. Are you Lenne?'

The woman in blue immediately turned toward the words, all her body language telegraphing both fear and flight. The face she revealed to the pair was indeed one of remarkable beauty. Her lips were as soft and tremulous as begonia petals in a spring zephyr, her nose a delicate edifice of ivory perfection; her eyes were most enchantingly set in her head, slanting with an elegant tilt that gave her an elfin appearance and the whole was framed by spider-silk threads of fine dark hair.

Paine stopped in her steps and gently reached out with an open hand. "Please, we're here to help you. Don't be afraid."

The fragile lips parted and then she spoke. "What do you want? I don't need help." The voice was a very high soprano. Nooj thought some of the overtones were possibly beyond the range of human hearing. It made his head hurt.

"My name is Paine and this is Nooj. We were with Yuna when she released Shuyin from the torment he had been suffering and opened the way for you both to progress to the FarPlane. Do you recognize us?"

Lenne, for the first time, focused on the pair who had startled her in her solitude. "I think I do. I think I remember a man with a cane and an artificial leg. Oh, I didn't mean to be personal!" she hastily put her hand over her mouth in a gesture of apology.

"You didn't say anything wrong. We've been looking for you and so has Shuyin." Paine thought she might as well cut through the small talk and get to the heart of the matter. She had little tolerance for blather.

The other woman sank back down into the grass and buried her head in her hands. Soft sobs shook her narrow shoulders while her long hair veiled her face.

Nooj made a disgusted sound and hobbled over to the weeping woman. "Don't carry on like that. There's no reason to. The yellow-headed nincompoop is well and healthy. He now realizes he was mistake...."

Lenne raised her head, revealing a perfectly dry face, and squeaked at him furiously, "He's not a nincompoop. He's the most awesome man in the world. He died trying to save me. It's not his fault things aren't very well explained here." It was like confronting a rabid kitten, one all claws and teeth.

"Better shut up, Nooj. You're just making things worse." Paine sat down beside Lenne and attempted to catch her agitated hand. "Now, listen to me, little girl. We found Shuyin at the top of the stairs, at the keyboard of Vegnagun, where you left him. He didn't understand how things are here and was doing his ..."

The relentlessly treble voice of Lenne interrupted and Nooj took several steps backwards, almost losing his balance in his haste.

"I won't hear anything against him. If you're going to talk mean about him, just go away. He's the most awesome man in the world. He died trying ..."

"Yes, I know, ... to save you. Now, be quiet and listen." Paine was patience itself.

"No! I won't listen to anything against him ... I won't! I won't!" she clasped her hands over her ears and began singing loudly in a penetrating tone.

Paine sprang up and retreated back into the forest's shade with Nooj at her side.

"By all the sages of Spira, those two deserve each other." Nooj was shaking his head trying to rid it of the echoes of the piercing voice.

"I agree but now we have to get them back together so the rest of the world can go on ignoring them." Paine folded her arms and looked implacable.

"Why don't we simply push her over the falls? It would be the merciful thing to do." Nooj pled piteously.

"We have to reunite them. I said we would. You want me to break my word?"

"Why not? If we can get rid of that horror at the same time. Oh never mind. We're all already dead and I doubt that a tumble over a falls no matter how high would make any of us any deader. You're the believer; how do you get rid of someone who's already dead?" He was only half joking.

"As I recall, it has something to do with garlic or a stake through the heart or, maybe, a silver bullet or holy water or something like that – none of which we have or can get. Think! You're the philosopher!"

"There are obviously things in this un-earth that are undreamt of in my philosophy. I am totally out of ideas – no – suppose I hold her and keep my hand over her mouth and her hands off her ears while you tell her what's going on? If we can get a few words in without her talking over us, we may have a chance."

"Let's brainstorm and try to think of something less violent. If we can't, I'll go for that. Now, I'd better check and make sure she's still there." Paine crept back a little way and returned with an air of satisfaction. "She's just exactly where she was when we first saw her – same posture, everything."

"I'm not sure that pair has the intellect to survive even if they are dead. Truthfully, Paine. Have you ever seen anything like them?"

"Not human. There were a few fiends I fought as stupid as that but I never thought I'd see humans ..." she sighed in disbelief.

Nooj sprawled out on the moss and turning over, dipped his face into the golden water of the stream. "Either she's stopped singing or I've gone partially deaf – for either of which I am thankful. Come over here and comfort me."

"Now who's being importunate? Dare we risk these clothes?"

"Let's be bold and venturesome." He precluded further discussion with an embrace of unique intensity.

When they were of a mood to care, they discovered, to their grateful surprise, that the fresh clothing was neatly folded near to hand instead of being deposited in a heap several yards off.

"Were we so preoccupied that the costume mistress was able to sneak up this close?" Nooj found the whole issue of the clothing to be both curious and amusing.

"I think we're turning out to be more trustworthy." Paine said smugly as she examined her new dress. It was identical to the last one which had been the most satisfactory garment she had worn since being deprived of her shorts and leggings. "Usual thing for you?"

"Looks just like the last one. Do you see any boots or shoes around?"

"Not yet. Maybe next time. Now, back to Lenne." She was adamant.

He moaned and rolled over to escape her mock blows.

"You said you'd help."

He protested, "I helped with Shuyin; you handle the woman. You're better equipped to deal with her – that voice hurts my ears."

"I thought you were the strong stoic type, the kind that suffers in heroic silence." She stood over him, hands on hips.

"That was before I met Lenne. I tell you, I'd have run like a squatter monkey if I'd ever had to face her in battle. One screech and it would've been all over. Paine, I can't stand to be around her. She's worse than Rikku."

"Oh, all right. You come along behind me and stay inside the forest so you'll be at hand in case I need you."

"Please, Paine, don't need me. I'm becoming convinced that you're the only sane woman Spira has produced."

"I think I'll take that as the nicest thing you've ever said to me." Beaming, she pulled his head down so she could kiss him with appropriate enthusiasm. "I'll reward you for that as soon as I get Lenne squared away."

It was with great reluctance he let her go and then trailed her as slowly as he could, exaggerating his limp as an excuse.

Paine did not try to creep up on Lenne again but strode boldly across the short grass and plopped herself down in front of the other woman, crossing her legs as though preparing for a long discourse.

"Look, Lenne, we have to talk. I promise I won't say anything bad about Shuyin. I won't even mention him 'til you're ready. Will you listen to me?"

She could see, from the corner of her eye, Nooj hovering just inside the shadows and imperiously waved to him to keep still.

Lenne did not lift her head, but made a motion that might have been a nod. Paine chose to interpret it as such.

"As I tried to tell you before, we met the awesome," she choked on the word, "Shuyin not long ago. He misses you so much and is so wretched. Is there a reason you haven't gone back to him? Don't you care for him anymore?"

Lenne looked up, her eyes brimming with tears, "I adore him with all my heart and miss him so much too but I can't go back. I don't know when I left and every time I try to go back, I forget where I'm going and think I'm on my way to find some help. Then I figure it out and try to go back and it all starts over again. Oh, I don't know what to do. This is a terrible place and nothing stays like I want it to. I thought the FarPlane was supposed to be so great." She dropped her head on her knees again and abandoned herself to her grief.

Leaning forward and sliding nearer, Paine patted the woman on the shoulder. "We'll help you find your way back. Did you get any answers yet? About, you know, touching and all that?"

"Of course, I found out about that right away. Poor darling awesome Shuyin – he's always wanting to do the proper thing and not make any more trouble. He's so sweet and so ..."

"So you understand that you and he can ..."

"Oh, that? Well, of course. That's why I'm in such a hurry to get back to him. It's been more than a thousand years. Do you have any idea how frustrated a girl can get in a thousand years? And I'm not getting any younger; maybe he won't want me any more." She began to weep in earnest. "I don't suppose that man – the one with the cane – would want to ... you know ... just til I get back to Shuyin?"

"No," Paine was firm. "It wouldn't be a good idea to mention that. Not to him. And about Shuyin not wanting you, don't worry. Nobody ages here – at least, I don't think they do. And he seemed just as frustrated as you when we last saw him, so be patient for a little longer. Now, do you think you could force yourself to lower the range of your voice the teeniest bit? Don't get upset when I call Nooj to join us. And don't make any moves on him." She stressed grimly.

Lenne drew a deep breath and, making an obvious effort, dropped her register to a more tolerable coloratura from the falsetto scale she had been using. "Is this OK?"

"Much better. Nooj, it's safe now." Paine made a wide sweep with her arm.

The woman/girl in blue looked about to spring up and flee at the sight of the man in the crimson cassock hobbling from the sheltering gloom of the forest, although in which direction was in doubt. Paine patted her hand reassuringly and made cooing noises.

"So, what's the next move?" Nooj asked when he was within earshot. He dared not come closer until he was certain the organic calliope was muted.

"She's lost, lost in location and in time. I thought we might guide her back to the staircase - only to within sight of it." She hastened to add, seeing the look on his face at the idea of facing the Elite Guard again.

"All that long way back through the forest and across the meadow? With a piccolo for a traveling companion?" He was dubious.

"Do you have a better idea? I'm going to get these people back together no matter what it takes. By the way, she knows what she needs to know about you-know-what."

"Good god, Paine, do you have to sound like such a witling? So she can give him what he wants and needs now. That's one mercy. As to a better idea – since we agreed that we can't be killed by going over the falls, why not do it? If I'm right in thinking these are the ones we first encountered, a short jump will cut leagues off our journey and we can deliver her to her proper destination without retracing every last one of our steps. And get her off our hands quickly." The last was said in a hurried sotto voce.

"Captain, I do believe you have it. Of course, we'll get all wet but ..."

"Hold that thought until after we've done what we set out to do. After we've completed your geste, we can continue our own adventure. Ready?"

Lenne had been looking from one to the other with a puzzled expression. Then when she saw the two advancing on her with outstretched arms, she suddenly realized what they had been talking about.

"Oh no! Not me! I'm not jumping off any cliffs. You won't see me going over these falls." Her voice had reverted to its grating falsetto and Nooj recoiled in agony.

"Lenne, voice, please. Lower your voice." Paine shouted over the combined sound of the woman and the water.

As Lenne paused in confused distraction, the other two rushed forward, caught her by the hands and, gripping her tightly between them, leapt over the cataract in a compact group.

The mist obscured their view even of one another as they fell, their gripping hands torn apart, their bodies buffeted by the occasional outcropping of rock, tumbling in the embrace of the plummeting waters. They fell for what seemed to be a goodly portion of eternity and were beginning to become bored with falling when the vertical journey abruptly ended.

10/11/048


	8. Chapter VIII

Note to those who have indicated a level of discomfort with my depiction of Baralai: Remember, this is after the episode with Vegnagun and the possession of Baralai by Shuyin. I see him (Baralai) as having settled into his position as Praetor and having become somewhat inflated by the office. Unrelenting admiration can do that to a person. Congruent with this loss of self-criticism, I think he might have become delusional about the possibility of restoring his relationship with Paine, convincing himself that it was far more than a passing affair of their youth. Please note that this is only my personal fancy; it is not that of Square who owns the franchise which I have borrowed for a little time.

A/N: I apologize for the earlier version of this chapter. The revised one is at least a little better – I hope.

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**After**

Chapter VIII

"Paine! Are you all right?"

"I'm here and no damage. Did you lose your cane?"

"No. Somehow both it and my spectacles stayed with me. Where are you?" The endlessly plunging torrent had trapped him in an alcove just big enough for a single body.

"Here." A slim arm in a black sleeve poked through the curtain of water like a disembodied limb which by all rights should have been clutching a sword. He gripped the hand and pulled. Paine shot through the flow and plastered herself to his chest with a wet slap.

"Well, here we are but where's Lenne?"

He clutched her like a talisman. "We must be at the foot of those damned falls and she's certainly here as well. There's nowhere else for her to go. Are you hurt, bruised?"

"No. I'm fine, just soaked. Let's get out of this place and see if we're where you expected us to end up."

They pushed their way out of the sheltering depression, through the cascading water and found themselves standing ankle deep in a sandy-bottomed pool, one constantly roiled by the flood pouring in and out of its basin. Not a dozen steps away was the familiar meadow stretching to the extent of their vision, fading into the shadows of the far distance.

"I was right, for what good that's done us. It was a shortcut. Now, where's that woman?" Nooj waded ashore, cursing at the fabric clinging to his legs and hindering his movements.

"Maybe we should take these things off and look around for some fresh ones." Paine suggested as she bent to wring out her equally soaked skirts. "Hey, look! There's Lenne."

Not far from the shore sat the object of their concern. She seemed to be perfectly dry and had assumed the exact pose she had affected at the top of the falls, costume spread about her, head lowered so that her long hair screened her face, modesty in every line.

Paine loped over to her, leaving Nooj to follow at whatever speed he could manage. "Lenne, you all right? How did you get dry so fast?"

The delicate face turned up, "What do you mean – dry? I've always been dry. Why are you so wet? Don't you know enough not to go in the water with your clothes on?" The piercing note had returned to her speech.

"Lower your voice, please. Do you remember us?" Paine made a gesture that included both herself and Nooj.

"Oh! Sorry. Is this better? Of course, I remember you. You're the ones who are going to take me back to my Shuyin, the most awesome man in the world. Well – let's go." She got to her feet and stood waiting. "What took you so long?"

Nooj muttered between clenched teeth, "We were delayed."

They had walked only a short distance when he turned again to Paine and admitted, "I think you had the right idea back there. We can't make any progress weighed down like this in these sopping clothes. Let's take them off – if no fresh ones are supplied, we'll be better off naked." Matching the deed to the word, he began struggling with the wet cords across his chest and shortly pulled the garment over his head and dropped it on the grass. Picking up his cane again, he set off like the intrepid commander he had been in life, garbed only in his assumption of authority.

Laughing helplessly, Paine disrobed as well and exulted in the freedom afforded her legs as she cavorted like a misplaced dryad, dancing among the little pastel flowers. "I could learn to enjoy this. Who needs clothes anyway?"

She was immediately answered by the outraged Lenne who, turning her head and spotting them, crouched down shielding her eyes and shrieking for them to cover themselves.

"What's the matter, Lenne? Why should you care?" Paine pirouetted over, "And do modulate your voice – you're hurting Nooj's ears."

"I'm sorry. You've got to wear clothes. It's not decent to go ... like you are."

Nooj snorted, "See. Another one of those benighted believers. Their god created these bodies (well, he had some help from the Al Bhed with mine) and the hysterical little ninny thinks they're somehow an affront to him. Not one of these idiots has a logical notion floating around in what passes amongst them for a brain. If nudity is wrong then why do all the creation myths insist that the first humans walked the earth naked and unashamed? I often think that religion is the greatest evil ever perpetrated against the intelligence of innocent people." He struck an oratorical pose, left forefinger raised to emphasize his point, his loose lock of long hair thrown back as he tossed his head.

Paine stifled a giggle with her hand. "I have to admit there's something awfully funny about watching you proclaim theology standing there naked as a finger, wearing only spectacles and flourishing that cane." Overcome by the incongruity, she collapsed with laughter, rolling across the fragrant meadow.

"Stand up, woman, and look to your right. If I'm not mistaken, and I rarely am, there's a bundle of fabric over there."

Once again, the wardrobe department had come through. The pair donned the fresh dry garments with a sense of relief on the part of Nooj who cherished his dignity, and an air of resignation from Paine who had relished her liberation. With Lenne thus appeased, they began their trek once more.

"We should be getting close to the place of floating rocks," Paine remarked after a while.

"We should ... Uh, damn. You'll have to sit on the Squealer Monkey while I answer this Call." Nooj was already heading for the curtain which had manifested itself a few paces off.

"Baralai again? If it's him, kick him if you can." Paine moved to intercept the woman in blue and distract her. "We'll be right here."

It was a lengthy wait before Nooj re-emerged into the FarPlane proper to find his traveling companions seated together on the grass, weaving wreaths from the little flowers. Lenne was almost obscured by the number of floral garlands that decorated her. Paine had been anxiously scanning the area and upon seeing him come through the fragmenting curtain, threw down her crude half-completed creation and leapt toward him, only just restraining herself from flinging her arms around his neck.

"Was it Baralai? What did he want?"

"It was LeBlanc. My sons are born and safely deposited in their crèche with my people. That means we have been dead more than ten months according to time in the other world and ... oh, I'm free of LeBlanc. She's decided she has spent enough of her time on my needs and wants and wishes to go her own way now. She explained in great detail and with excessive delicacy that she now feels her life lies among the living and she intends to live for a good long time."

"But I thought she wanted to bring the boys to meet you."

"That was then; this is now. I must confess I'm relieved she's made this decision. I had fears she would balk at turning the boys over to my people as she promised. The whole point of her pregnancy was to preserve my genes and make sure the carriers were reared as I was. It's a matter of some importance among us. And, yes, LeBlanc did mention something about going to Bevelle for a sort of breather, so maybe Baralai has beckoned and we're both rid of our pursuers. I didn't pay much attention to anything she said after she gently broke the news that she no longer cared to hasten to my arms. I shouldn't feel this way but I'm glad she decided as she did. Now, much of the guilt I deviled myself with is gone." He lifted Paine off her feet in a exultant embrace and promptly lost his balance. They both fell to the ground in a tangled heap.

Nooj, his face flaming, struggled to right himself. "Damn, damn damn! I'll never learn. I overestimate my abilities on this side of the barrier. I keep thinking I'm intact, forgetting I'm a cripple. I should know better by now."

Paine playfully swatted at him, "Don't be a goose. It could happen to anybody. It's not your fault and, anyway, we're not hurt."

"Not hurt physically, just made to look like fools. I do apologize. I suppose I have the right to make an ass of myself but certainly none to involve you in my clumsy attempts at bravura." He had regained his feet and shook himself angrily.

"Let it go. So you're free of LeBlanc. She's no longer stalking you?"

"No. Having caught me seems to have satisfied her need to pursue, like the cat who's had her mouse. But we must not forget that this was no one-sided thing. She wanted my body – for some reason I never quite understood – and I needed her to perpetuate my blood-line. The liaison served us both very well and there are no recriminations. She has and always will have my gratitude."

Paine pouted, "I would have done it if you had asked."

"But I didn't ask and so I didn't know. What's done is done. Let's proceed from here. As you said – let it go. This is no part of what is between us, not now, not ever." He looked gravely into her eyes.

Tearing her eyes away from his, Paine turned to face Lenne who expressed her opinion of their behavior with a sniff and a fastidious gathering of her skirts about her as though to prevent a contaminating touch.

"Well, if you're quite finished with your own personal affairs, shall we be on our way?" She lowered the just completed lei over her head and sprang up, looking rather like an ambulatory flower cart, and went skipping off over the grass.

The lovers exchanged a knowing look and made heroic efforts to stifle the amusement starting to bubble up in them. Paine managed to keep control of herself and declared forthrightly, "Yes, let's do go on; it won't do to keep Shuyin waiting too much longer."

"Not if he's as frustrated as I am." Lenne announced piercingly.

Paine hastily shepherded the other woman toward the horizon and away from Nooj who was whooping helplessly with laughter.

"Where are those rocks?" Paine had expected them to appear some time ago. They had walked what seemed to be miles since the Call from LeBlanc had occasioned particular rejoicing and a general lessening of tensions.

Lenne trudged along, with the others but not of them, wandering as her feet took her – ahead sometimes, behind at another, now off to the side, then distracted by a particularly vivid flower or an especially supple blade of grass.

This left Nooj and Paine free to meander comfortably at their own pace, conversing idly on any topic that caught their fancy.

Nooj laid an affectionate hand on the back of Paine's neck and observed, "You're not the same person you were when you were alive. Back in the old days, you were a sphinx, silent and mysterious and now ... well, let's say you're pleasantly prolix. Any idea what has happened?"

She grinned sideways at him, "I've changed! What about you? If I didn't talk, you almost never stopped telling us how you lusted after death, how sweet it would be to fade into nothingness. You never smiled and brooded like the villain of a bad play. I couldn't figure out whether you'd always been that way or if you became a Deathseeker after you lost your limbs. I'll speculate about myself if you'll do the same."

"You're suggesting a game of joint confession, then? Why not? I became a Deathseeker after my father died – when I thought it was my fault. That was a long time before Sin broke me; all that did was simply reinforce my decision. I was always something of a loner even when I was very young and never found life to be all that sweet so my path seemed clear. Now, why were you always so silent?"

"Don't laugh." She looked away, unwilling to engage his glance. "It was shyness and insecurity. I was sure you'd find out how stupid I was if I opened my mouth and it got to be a habit that persisted even after we drifted apart."

"You were afraid of me?" He paused and looked at her in disbelief.

"Naturally. I thought you'd throw me over if you found out I wasn't as smart as my silence implied. It's only lately I've discovered what a push-over you are," she rubbed her head against his chest. "So scared of women."

They took the opportunity to assure one another that their admiration was still mutual and became so pre-occupied that they almost forgot about Lenne. It took Paine's intrusively scrupulous conscience to remind them of the problem at hand.

She wound her fingers in his hair and pulled his head up. "Come on, lad. We're about to lose Lenne."

"Would that we could," he sighed softly before returning to what he had been doing.

"Patience, not much longer. She's about out of sight. I'd better catch her up." Paine moved away, efficiently tucking her breast back into her bodice.

"Go ahead. I'll come along at my own speed." He readjusted the lacings of his cassock which had become disarranged.

Suddenly their charge came running back to them, waving her arms. "There's something really funny up here." She squealed, "Come look!"

She seized Paine's wrist and drew her along.

Nooj limped after them as quickly as he could. He could vaguely make out, against the sky ahead, what looked to be enormous balloons bobbing up and down. With a sense of satisfaction, he realized that they had finally arrived at the place of floating rocks, and he was again confirmed in his thinking the plunge over the falls would return them to their starting place.

When he caught up with the women, they were surveying the scene. Lenne had clasped her hands under her chin and was regarding the buoyant boulders with wondering awe; Paine, with her arms folded, watched the phenomena with a jaundiced eye.

She inclined her head toward him as he came up behind her. "Do you still think we can ride these up to where the fake Vegnagun is?"

"I can't be sure – so much has changed. Nothing is as I remembered it from the time Gippal and I were here hunting Baralai. I do remember we rode floating boulders at one point but, frankly, I was still so muddled by the awesome Shuyin's possession of my will ..."

"I remember; you weren't very coherent. 'My body's rigged.' Humph! You really were an ass then." She cocked an eyebrow and continued, "There have been some definite improvements. You're a lot less stubborn nowadays. And a lot more agreeable. Well - want to try? The only way we're really sure of leads past the Elite Guard and I can't see you choosing that route." She smothered the snicker in her voice but could not hide the amusement in her claret eyes.

He glared at her over his spectacles, "Might as well. It would be faster and we'll get the tweety-bird off our hands sooner."

"Oh, come on, she's doing better – when she remembers. I think she's forgotten so much so many times that she doesn't know where she is or what she's doing half the time."

He considered her words seriously, "You know, I think you're right. You've grown wiser since you died. Maybe that's why you're more willing to talk. Do you have any thoughts on why we can still hold the memories of where we've been and what we've done?"

She blushed with pleasure, "No – not unless it's all tied up in the shifting of time. Do you?"

"I think we've not been here long enough. Seems reasonable that we have to experience everything here at least once before we start losing our minds and repeating it all."

"How will we know? Maybe we've already done this, had this discussion, before."

"I'm not sure it matters. But, I do have this feeling that we will know, that we'll have a sense of loss, of displacement."

"I can tell we're not likely to run out of conversation. Well, shall we ride some rocks?"

"By all means. Fetch your fosterling and let's go."

Paine loped over to Lenne and spoke briefly. The woman/girl obediently followed her to a stone that had just descended and was bouncing gently on the ground.

"Come on, Nooj. I think we'd all better ride the same one."

With an arm up from Paine and a timid tug from Lenne, Nooj managed to gain the top of the floater without mishap. He noticed that his cane had dug a flaking hole in the surface.

"I think this is cork, not mineral." He observed.

"It does feel warm for a rock and soft," Paine agreed. "Everybody off!"

Their transport had docked with a much larger counterpart, one that offered a gently undulating surface with lichen-like raised platforms scattered about. It appeared to be composed of the same corky substance as the floating object they had ridden to its level. As they were investigating more closely, a penetrating shriek from their ward drew their attention from their surroundings and to her concerns.

"Shuyin! Shuyin! I'm here!" She made a grab at Paine's sleeve, "Isn't he just the most awesome man you've ever seen?" She pointed a finger at a tiny shape beginning to emerge over the curve of the horizon.

"Why don't you run on ahead and greet him?" Nooj suggested. "You do remember what Paine told you to do?"

"Yes. No. What?"

Paine sighed in resignation. "Throw your arms around his neck and whisper in his ear what you've learned about touching and so forth. Remember, you're frustrated."

"Oh. Right. I really am frustrated. Bye, now." She set off at a surprisingly efficient clip.

"Now can we go?" Nooj asked.

"No. We have to make sure they know what they're doing."

"Madame! I absolutely refuse to play witness to the intimate gropings of that pair of mooncalves. There are some limits to my tolerance, not to mention my digestion."

"Don't be silly. We don't have a digestion any more. I mean we have to make sure they can get back to the meadow; Shuyin obviously lost his way or he wouldn't be here. As soon as we see them on the ground, we're rid of them."

"Do you promise not to pick up any more foundlings?"

"No. I like helping people. I think I see why Yuna is always doing it."

He sank down onto the nearest platform and dropped his head into his hands. "Why wasn't I satisfied with the old indifferent self-contained Paine? Why am I stuck for eternity with the Goddess of Compassion?'

"Hush," she pasted a welcoming expression on her face. "They're nearly here."

"Is he smiling or wretched?" Nooj refused to look up.

"Smiling."

"Thanks for small mercies. She's told him." He painfully pulled himself upright and awaited the long-parted, now united couple.

Oct 18, 200410


	9. Chapter IX

**After**

Chapter IX 

Paine tried to assume a welcoming posture as the re-united pair neared. It would be to everyone's advantage to conclude the meeting as quickly as possible and set the long separated lovers on their way to completion and happiness. She felt it was her responsibility to speak first since it was due to her that they were all at this juncture.

"You're probably wondering why I've called you all together," she began and was poked in the back by Nooj. She restarted, "We are gathered here to ..." Another poke, harder this time. "When in the course of human ..." At the third poke, she turned on him with a snarl. "All right! You do it!" Stomping off, she plopped herself down with her back to the others.

Nooj pushed his spectacles back up on his nose, took a firmer grip on his cane and intoned, "Shuyin and Lenne, ..."

"See, Shuyin, I told you they were the ones who found me. Aren't they awesome?" The flageolet disguised as a woman interrupted. "They've been doing what I whispered to you about. Paine told me what they do."

Nooj glanced at Paine with a question in his eyes. She blushed, spread her palms up in a gesture of helplessness and shrugged.

"I know; they told me too." Shuyin had a knowing leer on his face.

Looking at the yellow-haired man, Nooj suddenly realized what was so irritating about him, aside from the whining. His mouth was upside down. The upper lip was fuller than the lower and the cleft in his narrow chin was not enough to distract from that anomaly. Nooj was so bemused by his discovery that he was oblivious to the incessant babble of sound emerging from the two in front of him.

"For heaven's sake, Nooj. Say something to them." Paine reentered the conversation.

"Look at him. His mouth's upside down."

"Good grief, you're right. ... I wonder how that happened. Do you suppose some of the pyreflies got into the wrong order when Yuna sent him?"

"Beats me. I think they're both mistakes that somehow got past the inspectors. In fact, Paine, I think this whole place – this FarPlane and all its tentacles – is nothing more or less than a work in progress and not perfected at all. How else explain his mouth, her voice and my body?"

"And that little gap between your front teeth."

"What? Oh, that. It's always been there. I was born with it."

"I remember it from our days in the Crimson Squad. I've always liked it. I think it's sexy."

He looked at her from over his spectacles and under his brows, "Sexy, hmmm .... Harumph! Back to duty."

She obediently pondered, chin on hand, "You may well be right about a work in progress. We'll have to follow that line further. Now, what about them?" She gestured toward the pair, now listening with puzzled eyes, mouths agape.

"Lenne and Shuyin – now that you're together again, it is time for you to fulfill your obligations on this Plane and earn your passage to euphoria." Nooj spoke from deep within his chest, sounding like the veritable voice of Yevon or whatever god his auditors currently revered. "First, you must apologize to Paine and to me. We will forgive you or bless you or whatever the hell we have to do to get rid of you and send you on your way, rejoicing and comforting one another. Do you understand?"

Shuyin nodded somewhat peevishly. "OK. Nooj – I'm sorry I used your body to make you do things you would not have done otherwise; Paine – I'm sorry I made him shoot you. Is that what you want me to say?"

"It'll do. Now, we forgive you, so hop on the nearest descending rock and begin your journey through death together." Paine held out her hands in what looked like a sort of benediction.

"What are you doing?" Nooj whispered.

"What does it look like?" She shot back.

"That's why I asked."

"It's a blessing ritual. I just made it up. Looks pretty good, doesn't it?" She repeated the gesture with undeterred pride.

"If it gets rid of them, I'll do it too."

But Lenne was already pulling at Shuyin's shirt, urging him toward a just docked floater. "Come on! I know a great place by a waterfall. You're gonna love it. Come on! I'll show you some things I learned."

Leaning against his shoulder, Paine muttered into Nooj's ear, "Be grateful for the uses of frustration."

"Let's stay here for a while and let them get a head start. Unless, O Lady of the Boundless Compassion, you want to shepherd them into the realms of bliss."

"To be truthful, I'm more interested in finding a bit of bliss for myself."

"Aha! You did promise me a reward for that compliment." He caught her by the waist and pulled her to him.

"And you shall certainly have it."

"Up here before god and everybody? Lenne would have hysterics."

Paine made a face, "Happily, she won't see it."

She felt Nooj, who was looking over her shoulder, stiffen. "You spoke too soon. They're back."

"Why?" She asked with understandable irritation.

Shuyin plodded toward them, Lenne lagging at his heels, her thumb in her mouth and her eyes fixed on the ground. "I don't know which way to go. Lenne wants to go to the waterfalls and I don't know if that's where we're supposed to be. I don't want to start this whole thing over and you're the only people I know here and where am I supposed to go? I can't find any other people and Lenne says she met someone who told her things but she can't find them again." He took a deep breath, "So what am I supposed to do?"

Nooj walked with what authority he could command over toward the yellow-haired man. Planting himself near the docking place of the floaters, he pointed with his cane. "I am going to tell you exactly what to do and exactly where to go. Listen as carefully as is possible for one of your limited capacity. ... You are to get on the next descender and go down to the meadow. You are never to set foot on this particular location again. You will walk at random until you have met everyone you have wronged and begged their forgiveness. And if I ever see you again, if ever you come within my reach again, if ever your whining voice pollutes my air again – I will thrash you until death is the most minute, inconsequential, meaningless problem you have ever had. I will make you endure a multitude of millennia of pain, loss and frustration if you ever come near me again. Now, get on that damned floater or jump!"

As the astonished pair sank below the level of the cork island, Shuyin's plaintive voice could still be heard, "All I wanted to know was where I should go and ...."

"Now, where were we?" Nooj sat down on the nearest corky ledge.

"Here, Captain. And may I say what a fine lecture you delivered. For that as well as your compliment to me, you deserve the best the house has to offer." Paine, who had swiftly doffed her mage's costume, advanced upon him with a purposeful glint in her eye. "So out of that cassock and prepare to be piloted to heights never before ascended." She knelt before him and his fingers caressed her temples, exploring the delicate hollows. And it was as if Lenne and Shuyin had never been.

After a time outside time ... he moaned urgently, "Paine, so close!" She felt his hands tightening and then the taste of the sea flooded her mouth until she drowned.

And then she was aware again, lying on the shore of his body, her lips fluttering against his, "Is it still strange? The taste?" She gloried in knowing she could make him cry out in passion, could slip under his defenses into the heart of his mysteries.

He answered her without speaking. When her mouth was her own again, she gasped, "Still arous ... Ah?"

His hands were tracing intricate patterns on her body. "Do you need to ask?" His words were thunder in the distance and a whisper inside her ears.

"No. No ... ohh!" She wrapped her leg over his hip, the metal of the sheathe cold against her fevered skin.

And then ... After fervor, stillness.

"I wonder why they don't talk about this aspect of eternity. It's much the best part." She drawled with dreamy satisfaction, lightly running her fingertip along his cheekbone.

He stroked her tousled pewter hair, teasing it out across his chest with his fingers. "It doesn't fit in with the rigid morality of the priests. Think how embarrassed Baralai, for example, would be explaining exactly what his followers had to look forward to. The entire populace of Spira would become Deathseekers if they knew what we know."

He felt her lips form a smile as she reached out to trace the swooping line of the synthetic skin that blended his machina arm to his human flesh. "Does this still bother you?"

"Not so much. I've almost forgotten how my real arm felt. Except for the fact I have no sensory feed-back in my left hand, this limb is acceptable. It's not like it was on Spira when I hurt all the time. Sometimes so much that ..." He fell mute, remembering those days when he had sat huddled into himself, waiting for the agony in his body to abate so he could function again or,worse, when he had fallen to the floor, convulsing and screaming in pain.

Paine tried to read his silence, "Was it so bad? Could nothing be done?" She gently stroked the area where the sheath connected the machina leg to the stump of the thigh.

"No. It was a complicated situation; too complicated to explain right now. I ought not to have mentioned it. It's not something I'm comfortable talking about yet, nor reliving. Perhaps later, when there's more distance between the memory and me. After all, there's no rush; we have nothing but time before us. Time to discuss and explore everything."

Seeing her expression was still troubled, he relented, "I'm mostly accustomed to the implants after all this time – all of them, the hidden ones as well. The leg has always been the most irksome; it's never worked right, but there's no pain anymore and that's enough for now."

"I'm glad in a way you're not hurrying to get your old body back," Paine murmured sleepily. "I've always felt safe with the machina bits wrapped around me."

"Then rest safely." He held her against him with his left arm.

After a while, she shifted her position across his body and lazily sat up. "Wake up, Nooj. We've slept again."

He stretched and yawned enormously. "Again? We must be getting used to this place or it to us or we've earned some special privileges. Do you see any clothes or shall we dispense with them thereby proving our superiority to the petty, ever mutating rules of whoever is in charge?"

"I think we'd better be as conventional as we can for a while yet. I see something behind that outcropping over there." She hurried back with the usual clothing and "Shoes! Look, Nooj! We've got shoes!"

There was a pair of ankle high black lace-ups for her and a single short boot for his right foot.

"Humph! Parsimony seems the watchword for this wardrobe manager. Wonder if we're expected to cross hot sands or thorny barricades this time."

"Don't complain. At least somebody's listening. Be grateful." She pulled on the footwear with enthusiasm. "They're a perfect fit."

When they were both dressed, they considered the choices before them. They could return directly to the meadow and risk meeting Shuyin and Lenne again or they could take the other path and run the gantlet of the Elite Guard on their way back down. Both courses were less than appealing.

Nooj looked reflectively at his mismatched feet and mused, "If we go through the meadow, there's a better than even chance Shuyin will run if he sees us. I think I scared him enough to make him keep his distance. I don't know about Lenne, though. She's too scatter-brained to be frightened off for long. On the other hand, if we go down the stairs past those women, I don't see any hope of avoiding another encounter with them. So, to the meadow!" He limped off to the docking area, trying to adjust his gait to the presence of the single boot.

"I don't know who has these peculiar ideas about costuming. Would it have bankrupt the deity of this place to have supplied a pair of boots?"

"Oh, stop complaining. At least the fake foot isn't going to be feeling anything. Step lively, now." Paine had scant sympathy for small complaints.

Once on the surface of the FarPlane again, they – without debate – set their course for the jeweled forest. It had the most attractive attributes of any single section of this world, including the presence of the stream that had proved useful in keeping the machina limbs in good repair. They had not gone far when Nooj stopped short and swore, "Another Call. Now who?"

He passed though the curtain of light like the veteran he had become, not waiting for the Gatekeeper, and went without guidance to the whirling column which marked the site of his appointment.

"Great god! Gippal! What are you doing here? We weren't all that close when I was alive. Why are you bothering me now I'm dead?" He threw himself down in the chair and stared in surprise at the one-eyed man across the table.

To his credit, Gippal seemed a little ashamed of his importunate appearance. "Baralai. He asked me to come talk to you. He's afraid to come because he knows he can't be civil and you'll walk out again."

"What does that dark-souled half-albino want this time; does he still think he can reserve Paine until he works up the courage to jump out a window?"

"Well ... that's part of what he wants me to talk to you about. Oh, by the way, LeBlanc is going to have your babies any day now! Congratulations!"

Nooj clutched his head in his hands and groaned. "Time. Time. Thank you for the news, Gippal. How long have Paine and I been dead?"

"Huh? I'm not too good at keeping track of things, but I think it's been about nine months or so. Why?"

"Never mind. What does Baralai have in mind – and I use the word loosely – now?"

Gippal interlaced his fingers and leaned forward over the table. "He wants you to agree that the relationship between you and Paine will continue to be a platonic one until she can make her choice between the two of you." He sat back with a relieved air, having delivered his memorized message without flaw.

"What!" Nooj began laughing, laughing like Gippal had never seen him laugh before. "How'd you let him talk you into doing something this stupid and useless?"

"You know me," Gippal grinned. "I'm easy."

"She's already made that choice; she told him when he Called her the first time. She wishes him well – every happiness and all that rot, you know. But she is not available to him and will never be. She wants to enjoy her piece of eternity in peace – with me. Gippal, that sanctimonious ass already knows this; he just won't believe it. If you're his friend, help him to accept that she's lost to him, not just for awhile, but forever. She and I are ... Oh hell, you understand what I'm saying."

The Al Bhed scratched the back of his head. "Sure, I get what you're saying. You and Paine are getting it on. That's all right with me. After all, you did it while you were alive, why not now? Are you sure Baralai knows this?"

"Both Paine and I have tried to make it clear to him. If he didn't understand us, maybe you can put it in the sort of simple explicit language he can process in that excruciatingly small brain of his. If you have to, draw him technical diagrams. Or stick figures which are probably more at his level. And tell him from me that his idea of Heaven is lacking in any number of amenities – and, conversely, makes some generally unmentioned delights readily available. Wait! ... Just tell him this and make sure he understands it is a personal message from me to him. Say: 'Agape is not the only form of love commonly experienced on the FarPlane.' That should give him a stroke."

Gippal laughed with real pleasure. "You've lightened up a lot. Guess finally getting what you hunted for all those years helps. I don't understand completely what you mean but I think I get the general idea and I'll tell Baralai. By the way, how come you've still got those machina parts?"

"That's one of the missing amenities. I don't know. Baralai will tell you it's because I'm a hopelessly damned heathen instead of a believer. But I admit, I don't know. It doesn't really matter; I'm used to them. Was that all?"

"Yeah. Come to think of it, I guess this means I'll have an occupation when I get to over there. Maybe I can be your maintenance man again. I always got a kick out of fooling around with your joints back in the old days ... Good to see you again. Give my regards to Paine; hell, give her a kiss from me."

"I will. One more thing. If you see her, tell Yuna that Shuyin and Lenne are finally together – in the full meaning of the word."

Gippal smirked and gave a thumb's up sign as the spinning color closed behind him.

"Well? Who was it?" Paine demanded. "We are sharing things, aren't we?"

He stretched out an arm and pulled her down beside him. "We're sharing everything. This isn't like it was back on Spira. There's no reason not to be open here. You know, Paine, it's not easy to realize we're in the place I never expected to be." He leaned on his elbow and idly sifted through a random patch of grass. "This is such a peculiar situation I can't get a focus on it." The customary brooding look returned to his eyes.

Nooj continued, speaking mainly to himself, "I'm wondering about this Call system. There seems something suspicious abut it. Why should the presumed peaceful eternity of the believing Dead be subject to the invasion of any acquaintance yet living? What are their affairs to us? Or ours to them? Surely the very nature of dying should have severed the bonds that held us before. I think this is just another example of how poorly planned and executed this so-called Paradise is. I doubt anyone has spent any time on making it work with any logic at all. After all, why should a mortal be permitted to try to interfere..."

Paine drew a deep, calming breath, taking her impatience firmly in hand. "As much as my intellectual development profits from your seminars, you are not answering my question!" The last six words were spoken with separate, exaggerated emphasis. "Are you going to tell me who Called you and what they wanted?"

Nooj gave a little start and looked at her. "Uh? Oh, of course. It was Gippal."

"Gippal? What for? I always liked him; he could make me laugh even when I didn't want to but what does he have to do with us now?"

"He was acting as an ambassador from your distraught discarded lover, Baralai. He who expects us to live platonically until he can present his case in person. Oh, by the by, LeBlanc hasn't given birth yet."

Paine jerked her head around to face him. "What? More time disjointings. How long has it been, anyway?"

"Gippal says about nine months. I've given up trying to do any correlation; there is no evidence of any orderly process of time in this insane place. Not one that makes sense anywhere else. There's no sense of orderly progress anywhere in this ..."

"What else did Gippal say?" She leaned into his embrace,at the same time pulling him back to the subject.

"He said to kiss you for him." He delivered the message at enthusiastic length. "And I told him to inform Baralai that you had made your choice and wished him well. That was what you wanted to say, was it not?"

"Of course, I chose you long before I was involved with him. Why can't he get it?" Paine pushed him gently back into the grass. "Let's cuddle while you tell me everything Gippal said."

"Just cuddle? Nothing more?"

"Until you've told me all – then we'll see."

He stretched out, his head supported by a convenient hillock and drew her down to rest comfortably on his chest as he began an exact recitation of the conversation in the circular room. She sighed with deep contentment and listened with increasing amusement and smug satisfaction. This was beginning to resemble a proper Heaven. She decided she could tolerate the messiness.

10/25/0410


	10. Chapter X

A/N: I have raised the rating to 'R' for obvious reasons.

This chapter contains a little tip of my hat to Avelera, who has breathed fresh life into Auron (a neat trick). I hope she will forgive me for hi-jacking her hero for my purposes. I shall try to return him intact and unharmed.

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**After**

Chapter X 

After the telling (and carefully censored) retelling of the visit with Gippal, Nooj waited for a response from Paine. She was silent, resting heavily across his chest.

"Paine," he called softly but she was asleep. They seemed to be permitted to actually sleep all of a sudden and she was catching up on what she had missed during their early days on this Plane. He smiled indulgently and let his own consciousness drift away. It was pleasant lying on the lightly scented grass of the meadow, surrounded by the fresh breezes and the drifting clouds in the greenish sky. One might almost think ...

He was awakened abruptly by an elbow in his diaphragm. Paine had shot up into a seated position and was digging a finger into her ear.

"Ugh! Never ignore a Call! The itch keeps getting worse until you can't bear it. See you later." She jumped to her feet and ran towards the undulating curtain behind them.

Beyond the curtain and past the swirling colors of the column, in the appointed place, Yuna was waiting, her placidly sweet face composed into a mask of tolerant kindness. "Hello, Paine, how are you feeling?"

"Uh, hi. I'm fine – considering I've been dead for ... how long is it now?"

"Not long. I meant to come before but ... Are you settling in all right?" Yuna's voice was its usual soothing monotone.

"Yeah. It's all right. What can I do for you?" Paine had never had much patience with the former Summoner and her gently devious ways. Besides, small talk was not her forte.

The woman on the other side of the shimmering table smiled, a very accepting and ineffably kind smile. "I just wanted to check and make sure you were all right. Are you happy?"

"Yuna, what's this all about? Yes, I'm fine and I'm happy. I'm with Nooj and we've picked up where we left off and we're enjoying the hell out of each other."

Yuna slowly turned cerise. "Paine! Don't talk like that. You're in a holy place now and I'm sure you don't mean what you implied." She shook an admonitory finger.

"Have you been talking to Baralai and listening to all his babble about only platonic relationships on the FarPlane and the rest of his nonsense?"

"Now, don't be like that. Baralai's a priest and he knows about all this. If he doesn't know what it's like on the FarPlane, who does?"

Paine snickered despite herself, "One who's living here – that's who. Yuna, I'm not lying or trying to shock you. Nooj and I are together here and we're happy. So tell Baralai to quit sending everybody he can think of to bother us and try to make me feel guilty. I'm not leaving Nooj and he's staying with me. That's that!" She folded her arms and glared with her glittering crimson eyes in a way that was familiar to Yuna from their sphere hunting days.

"Well, if you're sure that's how you want it. Have you forgotten he's a married man and about to become a father – several times over?"

"It's just twins, not a litter, and he never married Blondie. When are the pups due, anyway?"

Yuna blushed painfully again. "Language, Paine, language! LeBlanc is expecting her blessings in about a month, I think. Are you sure he never married her?"

"Not formally. She preferred to make sure her fortune stayed in her own hands and nobody else could make any sort of claim against it. And I know as soon as she's had the boys, she'll drop Nooj and run after somebody alive. Just watch."

"Oh, that seems unlikely. She loves him so deeply."

"Just watch. Now what did Baralai want you to tell me? ... Don't pretend; I know he's behind this visit. And hurry up. I have some unfinished business with Nooj."

"All right," if Yuna could have turned redder, she would have melted the table between them. "He wants you to maintain your purity until he comes to your side and can claim you for his Eternal Bride. He knows you are a strong woman but he fears that Nooj, in his arrogant and rampant masculinity, will ravish you and you will be left helpless and alone and ... well ... ravished." She finished lamely.

"So, I'm requested to remain helpless and alone until he gets around to dying and comes to ravish me himself – with the blessings of the Church, of course? Tell him 'no thanks'. I respectfully decline his generous offer and beg to remind him that Nooj was my first choice, long before he entered the game and I don't care to consider another change. Thanks for coming, Yuna, now – goodbye." Paine slid back the chair and rose.

"Wait! Would Rikku be any more persuasive?" Yuna asked plaintively.

"Good God, no! If she shows up, I'll walk, no, run out as soon as I see her. Goodbye, Yuna." A truly horrifying thought brought her to a stop. "If Baralai even thinks of sending Brother, I'll manage someway to disappear them both. I'm not kidding. No more. I've had enough of this stupidity. No more, I mean it." She almost sprinted from the room.

"How about Buddy? Or ..."

The cloyingly sweet tones followed as Paine dived through the aurora.

"Hold me, Nooj!" She threw herself atop the reclining man.

He agreeably closed his arms around her. "As you once asked me in a similar situation, 'That bad?'"

"Worse. It was Yuna and she was fronting for Baralai with the same old crap ... And time's all screwed up again. And I'm fed up with all this ..." She clutched him and buried her face in his neck. "Just hold on to me and don't let them get me."

"Poor Paine," he stroked her back soothingly. "Fought over on two worlds. How does it feel to be so desired?"

"You ought to know. You with your Blondie and a whole rabid squad of worshippers and – I forgot to tell you – Lenne was wondering if you would service her until she could get her awesome Shuyin up to speed." She lashed back verbally but did not relax her grip.

"What? That screech owl? I'd rather ..."

Then they were laughing together, as the absurdity of the situation struck them simultaneously. Finally, Paine, spread out like a starfish amongst the pale flowers, composed herself and asked, "Do you suppose people on this side of the barrier can have babies or is that a privilege reserved for the living?"

"Are you asking if the dead can produce life?" He raised a quizzical brow.

"You make it sound ridiculous."

"No, I don't. I'm taking your question seriously and the answer is - I don't know. The conventional thought now is life comes only from life but not so long ago there was a theory that held life arose from the processes of decay."

Paine glared and wrinkled her nose. "We're not exactly decaying, you know."

"I know. I was making the point that there have been various beliefs about creation over time and, while one may hold sway now, there's no proof and I know both too much and not enough to give you a definite answer.

She was not satisfied, "What does your instinct say?"

He almost shouted, "What? You want the answer to a serious question to be based on a gut reaction or a matter of unsupported faith? Come on, Paine, you're not that dishonest or stupid." His anger was only half feigned.

They walked on unspeaking for a while, the woman pouting, the man pre-occupied. Finally, Nooj broke the silence.

"I'm almost certain procreation is not possible here but since I've been wrong about so much already, I'm prepared to learn otherwise."

Paine stopped and faced him, "Are you? Really?"

With a suddenness which took her off guard, Nooj drew her into a mockingly passionate embrace. "Do you want to try?" A sardonic amusement colored his voice.

"Not yet. I just want to know if it's possible. Do you suppose I might already be pregnant if it's ..." She wriggled out of his arms.

"No. Not possible. I've taken care of that." He assured her.

"You? How?"

Nooj stared at her with an astonished expression, "You really don't know? I thought you understood that men of my people can choose when and if to beget children. Do you want to know the details?"

Paine turned a becoming pink. "No, thank you. I didn't know but I'll take your word. Does that mean that Blondie and the boys weren't an accident."

No, quite deliberate. I had to preserve my blood-line, you know."

"Of course. ... Nooj, we need to find somebody who can answer some serious questions. We can't just keep wandering around having fun."

"I don't know why not." He shrugged, "But if you wish ... who did Lenne find?"

"She never said precisely." Paine spread her hands in defeat. "I guess we keep on looking."

He tugged playfully at her mussed hair. "It's not that much of a burden. Ready to head for the forest?"

The distance to the jeweled forest seemed further than it had been the first time they had passed that way. But, then again, all the distances seemed longer. Nooj wondered if they had begun to be affected by the time and memory lapses which apparently beset every sentient being on this level. Maybe they should do as Olefer had done and progress onward - if they could find a door. It had been some time since they had met any other entity so perhaps their obligations here had been discharged.

"Are you enjoying your shoes?" He asked Paine who was walking quietly at his side.

"Oh, ... yes, they're a help," she responded absently. "I don't want to sound all optimistic, but I think I see something new ahead – just there – a little blip on the horizon. Can you see it?"

"Not yet. Your vision is better than mine. What do you think it is?"

"Can't tell yet but it's no forest and no staircase and no rocks." She shaded her eyes with her hand and squinted. "No use – it's too far away. Let's keep walking."

Soon, even Nooj could make out the shape ahead. It looked to be another human, an indistinct figure in a garment the color of his own cassock, moving with a flowing stride at an angle which must intersect their path if neither of them altered direction.

"Man or woman?" he asked Paine.

"Still can't see any details. Keep walking."

"You want to run on ahead? You're much faster than I am."

"No. I think we're meant to meet whatever this is and I'll stay with you." She caught his hand in hers, interlacing their fingers.

Step by step, the walkers neared one another. When they were within hailing distance, all three paused. Nooj and Paine saw before them a tall man, almost as tall as Nooj, with a well worn red overcoat drawn over his shoulders and supporting his left arm in a sort of makeshift sling. The collar of the coat was turned up, as was the custom on much of Spira, concealing the lower part of his face and his eyes were hidden behind wire-rimmed dark spectacles. After a few minutes' scrutiny, the stranger spoke in a pleasant baritone voice.

"Greetings, I am Auron."

"Sir Auron." Nooj felt a sense of awe before the legendary hero and, without conscious volition, bowed. "I am Nooj, late of the Crusaders and this is Paine, a former companion to Yuna, the Summoner."

"Yes. I thought it must be you two. I was looking for you." He smiled behind his collar. "Pray call me Auron; we don't commonly use titles here."

Paine had retreated a few paces and was looking at the older man, her heart in her crimson eyes.

"Greetings, Paine. I am glad to see you."

"Uh, yes. ... Meet you." The woman was reduced to speechlessness before the almost mythical Warrior.

"Sir,... Auron, why were you hunting us? Has either of us wronged you and do we need to make amends?" Nooj was hesitant. Being in the presence of Auron make him feel very young. It was as if all his years as a Warrior dropped away, leaving him once more the star-struck youth hearing the legends of grand gestes retold around an evening camp fire.

It took him a space of time to recover and reassemble his facade of self-confidence. He was face to face with Auron! Conversing with the myth as though with any common immortal. The situation was too unreal to accept and Nooj feared the pillars of his sanity were beginning to totter.

The old soldier looked carefully at the younger one, "Well, boy, it seems you fared even worse than I did in the wars. We must exchange stories later. ... No, you have done me no wrong. I came to find you for another reason. Here, sit down and let's have a drink."

"Do we drink here?" Paine had edged closer to him and was gazing at him with what could only be worship.

He chuckled, "I pretty much do what I want." He seated himself with unexpected grace, detached the jug from his belt and, with a quick gesture, produced three small glasses. "Try some of this. It'll put hair on your chest."

When the first swallows had been taken and Paine had recovered from what almost became a coughing fit, Auron continued. "I have come to take you to the Department of Resolutions. I'm the Gatekeeper there for this period."

"Gatekeeper? But we can see you," Nooj protested. His world was steadying again.

"Those jokers at the Meeting Curtain, up to their games again? I heard they had decided to be invisible for a while, just to relieve the boredom. No, I don't enjoy that sort of performance; it's hard enough on new-comers without subjecting them to practical jokes. As I was saying, I have come to take you to Resolutions where you can have your questions answered and your complaints adjudicated. Or if you would rather, I can give you a quick run-down right here. It's less stuffy than in the Department."

"Here, please," murmured Paine. By slow increments, she had slid the hand on which she propped herself over to within touching distance of the skirts of his red coat.

Auron had noticed her stealthy motion with a calmly compassionate eye and patted the encroaching hand in what was almost a paternal manner.

She looked at him with all the hopeful fantasy she had conjured during years of longing. Something indefinable passed between them and she leaned back as though an unvoiced question had been answered.

Nooj watched the by-play with a puzzled expression. He vaguely understood what had happened but did not completely grasp the implications. A connection between Auron and Paine had never entered into his consciousness and had played no part in his calculations.

Auron, responding to Paine's words as well as to her unspoken plea, smiled, "Very well. What do you want to know?"

"How long have we been dead?" Nooj was still trying to untangle the skein of time.

"There's no telling. Time doesn't function here. We use the commonly understood terms but they're meaningless as they relate to reality – such as it is. ... Paine, you had a question?" He turned to her.

She had drunk the contents of her glass with injudicious speed and was the slightest bit tipsy. "Auron." It was more an exhalation than a vocalization. "I used to dream about you when I was a child. I liked to pretend that you were my real father. ... I never knew my father." The last five words were whispered to the ground as she twisted her fingers in the grass.

Auron smiled again and patted her shoulder with a gently consoling hand, but said nothing.

There was an awkward silence until Nooj intervened. "Will you tell us why time is so peculiar and how things are done here? After all, you're a priest and should know what's needed."

"Not a priest, a monk. I admit, a distinction without much of a difference. I'll try to explain but it's a long one – I'll just pour another small libation." He refilled the glasses. "Now, let me see. To begin with, you may have noticed that there's really very little to do here. Most people work so hard while they're alive that they can conceive of no greater reward than endless leisure, with everything necessary supplied - even companionship." His nod encompassed the two before him. "Any intelligent and thoughtful entity soon sees that a surfeit of anything, including leisure, is the most direct path to boredom, ennui of a very corrosive type. So ... it was decided that those who came here could have the experience of their imagined Heaven – however they imagined it - until they grew tired of it whereupon they could chose amongst several alternatives. You two are somewhat premature in being told the choices and must understand that knowing them does not dictate that you make a decision at this time." He chuckled behind his collar, "There's that word again."

Paine had drifted off into a light doze after finishing her second glass of the unidentified, but potent, liquor. Nooj pressed on, "What are the choices and how do they relate to time?"

"I'm getting there, boy." Auron refilled his glass and offered the jug to Nooj who shook his head. "When you're tired of what you thought you wanted, you can choose to have your memory erased and start over. It will be just like it was when you first got here. For example, you would have no memory of your adventures with her," he nodded toward the sleeping woman, "although you would still recognize her from your time while alive. You would have the opportunity to repeat exactly what you've done or vary it, depending on the order in which things happened the second time. It's all random, you know. And you can have this memory revision as often as you like. Now, on the other hand, when you have completed your required tasks on this level, you may choose to keep the memories and go on to another plane where different things will happen in different ways. I'm not well versed on this since I've chosen to stay here and keep all my memories."

"This isn't my idea of the FarPlane. How did I get stuck here?"

"I don't entirely understand the reason myself. Your father was here as well, right? And he wasn't a Believer any more than you are? This is the Spiran FarPlane – maybe that explains it. Maybe you and Olefer got swept up and deposited in this place because you were Spirans. That's my best guess."

Nooj nodded in comprehension, "I don't suppose it matters at this point. We're here and there's no returning. ... Tell me, sir, when we choose to go on to another level, will Paine and I be able to go together?"

"I don't know. As I said, I'm no expert on any plane other than this. Maybe yes, maybe no. But back to your basic question. You asked how the unreliability of time fits into this – consider: How can time run precisely when those it affects are continually refreshing their memories and thereby changing the order and continuity of events? Reinforcing the randomness, if you will."

Nooj was silent for a long time, mulling over what the monk had said. He looked down at Paine whose head was pillowed in his lap and considered having to endure eternity without her. Beside the enormity of such a fate, the unsteadiness of time suddenly seemed of little moment.

"Thank you, Auron. You make that very clear. I have only a few more questions."

"Ask away, boy."

"What does the Department of Resolution do?"

"It sorts out all the difficulties you might have here. For instance, if you want your old arm and leg back, that's where you apply. I could get my eye back and my arm fixed, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Paine can shop for hair gel, if she wants to and new clothes. But she can't have a sword – no weapons allowed." He harumphed. "Whatever else it takes to furnish your idea of Paradise can be applied for at Resolution . Of course, it takes a few millennia for them to get back to you since they've always got a backlog. Not many are willing to work there since this is the Heaven of sluggards. Blame your own ideas of what this place ought to be."

"Not my idea. It's the one all those slack-jawed, knuckle- dragging Believers patched together. I'm puzzled – is the Department of Resolutions another name for the Department of Transitions? I was told ..."

"Have those prankster Gatekeepers at the Curtain been making up names again? It's the Department of Resolutions, although insiders sometimes call it the Department of Resoulutions – it's a pun, get it?"

"I think so. But does the Department – under any name - answer questions? I mean after you've gone about your business, if we think of something else, can we find answers there?" Nooj was regaining his confidence and in no mood for jokes.

"Only if I'm in my office. As well as Gatekeeper, I'm the official Explainer." Auron leaned back on his elbows. "If I judge you correctly, you're a lot like me and would rather find out things on your own."

"Mostly. It was just the time confusion."

"Now that I've straightened that out for you, I'll be on my way. We'll meet again later and have a few drinks while we share war stories and tell each other lies about our adventures. Take care of her." The older man looked affectionately at the still sleeping Paine, "She deliberately left the world she knew to join you here. Be kind to her; she's worth whatever it takes to keep her."

"Is she your kin?" Nooj ventured to ask and received no answer, only the cryptic smile.

Auron attached the jug to the belt at his waist, gathered up the glasses and vanished them with a move Nooj could not follow, and then he was gone, his long strides taking him across the meadow and into the haze of the distance.

Nooj gently nudged Paine off his legs and stretched out beside her, carefully wrapping her in his arms. His eyelids began to droop. The liquor had made him drowsy as well.

11/01/0411


	11. Chapter XI

This is the final chapter of this story. Barring unforeseen events, there will be no more updates. I've said what I have to say. And I thank those of you who listened.

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**After**

Chapter XI

Oddly enough, it was Nooj who woke first. Paine was moving restlessly in her sleep and had disturbed him. He propped himself up on his right arm and looked at her with concern. She seemed to be having some sort of nightmare and tears had clotted on her cheeks.

"Wake up." He gently shook her shoulder. "Wake up, Paine. It's all right."

She opened her eyes, at first seeming not to recognize him, then she threw herself against his body like one who fears falling from a great height.

"Nooj!" She buried her face against his chest and wept with bitter abandon.

He held her tightly to him, his right hand cupping her head. "What's the matter?"

She couldn't speak, able only to cry. Nooj was troubled. Crying was as alien to Paine as laughter to him. Had they both been changed in some profoundly essential way by the passage from life to death? Had the feeling that the transition was easy and seamless been a fraud and were they, at their depths, no longer the persons they had been before their translation? He held her, rocking her gently back and forth, and wondered what to say or do to ease her pain.

After a while, her sobs stopped and she lay limp in his arms, hiccoughing softly. She would not lift her head or meet his eyes. He understood her shame and was careful not to force her.

"I'm sorry. Didn't mean to go on like that." She spoke brusquely against his chest. "It must have been the drinks."

"Yes, liquor can hit hard when you're not accustomed to it. It's all right now." He petted her tenderly as one might comfort a bereft kitten.

Paine gave a great sniff and knuckled the tears from the corners of her eyes. "Do you think he could maybe be my father?"

"He didn't deny it."

"Did he say anything about me while I was asleep?"

"He told me to take care of you, said you were worth treasuring. And he looked at you with ... affection." Nooj produced the word with an air of triumph.

"Really? He thinks I'm worth something?" She looked up with a watery smile.

Nooj knew when to be silent and continued to hold her while she reassembled her composure.

"I became a Warrior because I a wanted to be like him – if he really was my father," she said truculently, pulling away from his arms and smoothing her hair with her palms.

"Yes."

"I'm all right now. It was the drinks; I'm not used to stuff that strong."

"Ready to go hunt for the forest?" He prepared to rise.

"Let's go." Paine leapt up and shook herself. "You can tell me what else you talked about while we walk."

Nooj gave her a mocking glance. "Sure you're quite refreshed and don't need a little distraction?"

She looked at him with surprise and, suddenly catching his joke, permitted herself a feeble laugh and linked her hand in his. They set out at as brisk a pace as was possible, Paine still half-enmeshed in the web of her dreams.

Nooj, who had been sweeping the horizon as they strolled, caught her arm and pointed. "To your left. Isn't that the staircase to Vegnagun? We're making progress."

"I think you're right. Did Auron tell you just where this Department of Resolution is? We didn't see any sign on our first trip through here."

"Damn!" He struck his forehead with his right hand. "I forgot to ask him. I wonder how many more things I didn't ask?"

"I should have stayed awake and helped. Sorry. So you didn't ask. So we'll just keep looking. We're better off than we were. We have comfortable clothes, shoes, some answers and we're rid of the Lovers." Paine kicked idly at one of the omnipresent and exceedingly tedious flowers. "I wish these things were a brighter color."

"Getting bored already? Do you want to go on to the next level?"

"Can we go together?"

"No guarantees and I'm not sure I've done everything I'm supposed to do here yet. It would be nice if we had a check-off list and could tell how far along we are. ... I'm saying 'we' for convenience. I don't think you have any debts to pay. Do you?"

She thought for a moment. "Don't know. Maybe I have to placate Baralai in some way before I'm free. And I think you have to stay here at least until the twins are born – although I have no idea how we'll be able to tell when the births occur. What with the time screw-up and all."

They had passed the staircase with no problems. It would appear that distance was an excellent deterrent to the enthusiasms of the Elite Guard, since none of the obsessed women had so much as stuck out her head.

"I have an idea about how time relates to us and to the living," Nooj mentioned with exaggerated casualness. "Want to hear it?"

"Carry on; I'm all ears."

"From what Auron said and implied, the time disparity is only here. We are the ones affected – not those on the other side. When we visit with a living being and they tell us something, they are stating what has happened and is happening in their world – the one we knew, the one where time proceeds in order. They are not imagining or making up tales to confuse matters."

"So when LeBlanc told you she had given birth to the boys and was no longer going to devote herself to your memory, that was the truth?" Paine was grateful for the diversion from her bitter-sweet thoughts of Auron.

"Precisely. And the visits from Baralai's agents are spaced more widely than we've perceived them. He's not aggressively stalking you; he's trying to win you back in his own way. It's not altogether his fault that he's so inept socially. The time compression and inconsistency simply makes it more obvious."

She stopped to consider what he was saying. "If I'm following your reasoning, you're saying what happens on Spira doesn't affect us here in any meaningful way. That we are foolish to permit ourselves to be confused and disturbed by what the Callers tell us."

He gripped her chin and tipped her face so that he could look straight into her eyes. "I was right! You are the only intelligent woman that religion obsessed world ever produced!"

"So what's the practical result of your idea?"

"We should ignore what's happening there. I'm free of LeBlanc and you're free of Baralai. We can leave them to their bickering and need only be spectators to their lives. They are our past, not our present." He continued to look intensely at her as though to press his opinions directly into her mind.

"I can't see any obvious error in that." She confessed. "The only part that bothers me is it's too comfortable, lets us off too easily."

"Forget our obligations, if there are any; why not try operating with this as a guiding principle for a while and see what comes of it?"

She nodded solemnly, "I have no objection. ... Did you ask Auron why we've suddenly become able to sleep?"

"No. That's another thing I forgot. Maybe you should have stayed awake." He drew her closer to his side with an affectionate arm around her shoulder. "The element in this world that's most disorienting to me right now is the lack of definition of night and day. I don't have any way to mark off intervals."

"It all comes back to time for you, doesn't it? You're a man of order and discipline and, without compartments, you're finding it hard to function." She stated this as a fact not a question.

He nodded, "You always were the only one who understood even a part of me. It was a major error on my part to let you go. One I won't make again. I never thought I would be learning new things about myself once I had died; I had the strong conviction that death would be the end of all the endless self-examinations and arguments within."

The shadow of the long-sought forest had drawn a dark line at the horizon when they became aware of another object nearer to hand. They could see, moving against the brightness of the sky, what appeared to be two figures aimlessly drifting along.

"Is that Shuyin and Lenne?" Paine wondered aloud. "It looks like them."

"Could be. Do you want to run ahead and check how they're doing? I would rather not talk to them again. I've only just recovered from the effects of their peculiar mannerisms. It's all right; go ahead. You took them as your project." He gave her a little push.

"I'll be back as soon as I can. Why don't you wait for me here? In the grass."

Nooj watched as Paine ran like a black-draped Atalanta across the meadow leaving the fragrance of crushed flowers to mark her passage. He heard her hail the couple in the distance, waving her arms in an additional effort to catch their attention. When the three met and seemed to engage in conversation, the maimed man sighed and lowered himself to the ground, stretching out full length and hunting a comfortable position.

He had closed his eyes and was lightly drowsing when she returned, breathless and grinning. She dropped down at his side and tickled his nose with a freshly plucked blade of grass.

"How are they doing? More problems?" He asked lazily, batting away the irritant.

"Let me just say that Shuyin is no longer wretched." She lay down beside him, pillowing her head on her clasped hands. "And Lenne is much quieter and looks very smug – like a cat with cream on its whiskers." She rolled over on her side and trailed a finger from his lower lip to his chest.

"Are you trying to start something?" He caught her hand and nibbled gently at her fingertips.

"Why not? We've worn these clothes forever." She preened flirtatiously.

Nooj laughed, "I've told you before you're a most unconvincing flirt; you haven't improved any. Turn around and I'll unhook you, or better still ..." He gripped the material with his left hand, the machina one, and tore it away with a single pull. "Now you'll be sure to get a new dress."

"Unfair. I'm the only one with no reserves."

"Alas. That's the fate of a failed seductress."

"Still not fair." She pouted, fiddling with the lacings across his chest.

"Oh, all right." He twisted the fabric of his cassock in the powerful machina fingers and ripped it cleanly to the hem, tossing it to the side. "Happy now?"

"Ummm," she snuggled up to him, feasting on his warmth, inhaling his familiar clean amber scent. "Are you going to give me a baby this time?"

Startled, Nooj drew back and stared at her. "What! Do you want one?"

"I'm not sure; I think so."

"Then the answer is 'No'. I won't be a part of this until you're absolutely certain. Since pregnancy is never an accident among my kind and we are not rapists, an embryo – once conceived – must not be deliberately discarded." He was more serious than she had seen him since their reunion.

"No abortions?"

"No abortions. You can't change your mind. I'm not even sure it's possible to create life here in this world of the dead but I won't take the chance so long as you're uncertain."

She closed her eyes, the better to concentrate. "Then we'll wait." She closed the gap between them and wound her arms around his neck, reaching up to loosen his long coarse hair so that it fell around his shoulders like a mane.

Afterwards, when they lay happily surfeit, their bodies still entwined, he mused, "There are worse ways to spend eternity."

She raised her head from his chest and purred, "I can't think of many better. Even if it proves impossible to make life here, it'll be fun experimenting. .... Now why don't you look for our clothes for a change?"

"Because it's woman's work," he dodged the blow she aimed at him. "And it's easier for you to jump up and down."

She proved the validity of the latter point by springing to her feet and kicking him lightly in the ribs. In a moment, she was back with the usual armload of garments.

"Looks like the same stuff. Do you suppose this has become our uniform? Hook me up. Why didn't you ask Auron about making babies?"

"I forgot" He busied himself with his lacings. "No. To be truthful, I decided not to."

"Why?"

"I have my reasons." The tightness of his mouth indicated he would not explain. He concentrated on winding his hair up again and pinning it in place with a smooth twig.

Paine looked at him with a calculating air and wisely held her tongue.

Soon they were back on the path they hoped would lead to the forest, if a meandering trek across a trackless meadow can be called following a path. They had just come to the place where they could distinguish the pale trunks of the slender trees in the forest when Paine wailed, I've got a Call! Damn it! I don't want to talk to anybody right now. I wish they would all go away and leave us alone."

"Think of it as staving off boredom for a while yet. I'll tell you what - I'll go with you." Nooj surprisingly asserted.

"Can you do that?"

"Auron said he did what he pleased. If he can do it, so can I."

The curtain had obligingly manifested itself within a few steps. When the Gatekeeper saw that there were two holding out their wrists for his guidance, he demonstrated a certain impatience. "Only the woman was Called. You, sir, must wait."

"She's not going without me. I will not permit it." Nooj proclaimed, looking at the area where he surmised the face of the guide must be.

"No. I won't go unless he can come with me," Paine chimed in quickly.

The Gatekeeper paused, apparently in thought. "Oh, all right. I'll get blamed but they'll blame me if I delay things anyway. Go on through; you know the way."

When they had passed into the private room, it was to encounter Baralai. At the sight of Nooj, his eyes widened grotesquely and the color drained from his face, leaving him, the only living being in the room, looking like a corpse.

"What are you doing here?" He nearly stuttered in his fury. "You've got no right to be here. I called Paine." His voice was rising in both volume and pitch.

"I'm just protecting Paine from your importunities. Look, Baralai, let's drop this nonsense. We were all friends once and you know Paine and I became lovers not long after we met in the Crimson Squad debacle." Nooj maintained his controlled, slightly amused air. "Why are you so intent on pursuing her now?"

"She doesn't need protecting. I love her and will join her soon. We were meant to be together like we were when she was alive." Baralai was not listening or not understanding what he heard.

"It doesn't look like it, does it?" Nooj continued to interpose his body between the Praetor and the woman. "She has no interest in being with you and I have no intention of stepping aside to give you a clear field."

"Then why won't you let her speak for herself? Have you bullied her to the point she no longer has a voice of her own?"

Paine rushed at the table, pushing Nooj aside in her anger. "You insufferable idiot – you're a fine one to talk about bullies. I speak for myself and always have. You're remembering something that never was. We slept together a few times. It was not a grand passion; it was not a consuming affair. We were friends and we shared some moments, intimate? - yes, special?- no. I was never your lover the way you're pretending I was. Now, go find some living woman or man to make you complete. I'm here on the FarPlane with my only real love and would like to enjoy my afterlife without you trying to erect your guilt edifice on me. Go away and let me remember you with some degree of kindness."

Baralai stared at her in complete disbelief, "You'd rather be with this cripple than with me? Don't you understand I'm a priest and when I join you I'll be able to make things easy and smooth? You'll have no worries, no problems, just bliss. I'll seat you on the Throne of Heaven and bow down before you. He drags you along like a gypsy at his limping heel, making you subject to his faults and whimsies. Why would you choose someone who's only half a man when I am offering my complete and intact self to you?"

Paine leaned over the table, her face only inches from the now-reddened face of the Praetor, "You will never understand what a complete man is. And you have never understood me; I don't like things too easy. I like pushing and trying and working things out for myself. So now, I'm telling you – leave me alone. I had hoped to stay your friend but I will never be your lover; I wasn't your lover when I was alive and I'm certainly not going to be waiting for you now I'm dead. It's over, finished, done. Go away, Baralai, you're becoming a bore." She turned her back decisively, her arms folded in a way both men recognized.

"It would appear that the lady prefers reality even in the midst of a universe filled with superstitious balderdash. Strange she should choose to go roving with a cripple over perching on the theoretical Throne of Whatever with a priest. Goodbye, Baralai. We both wish you well and hope you have a long and fruitful life. Oh, and don't send any more surrogates. They do your cause no good." Nooj took Paine by the hand and led her from the suddenly too small room.

Once back in the meadow, she leaned against him and breathed hard as though she had been running. "Thank you for being there. I know it's foolish, but he troubles me. He's not like I remember him being when I was alive."

"No, he's changed, started to believe his own publicity. It happens to men who become trapped in their private bubbles, who are constantly praised and never hear criticism. Little men who wrap themselves in the robes of righteousness tend to look bigger than they are, especially in their own mirrors, and they end up taking themselves far too seriously. The mantle of a god is a powerful drug and totally addictive. It creates its own reality. Baralai was a good person back in the early Crimson Squad days but he's not the same man now. Forget him." Nooj spoke with a profundity he rarely used anymore. Being around Baralai had a regressive effect on him.

"I still can't understand why he settled on me." She lamented, drooping her head on his shoulder.

"Probably because you're out of reach and he's driven to prove nothing is beyond him. He wants you because he can't have you. Forget him; he's no longer of any importance."

She nodded ruefully. "You warned me. Our lives just don't connect to the living anymore. I think you're winning the argument."

"It's not an argument, really. It's a discussion between companions and friends."

"And lovers?"

"That, too." A considerable interval was required to reassure her. "Now, on to the forest."

The details of the trees that marked the edge of the forest had become perceptibly clearer as they talked. Only a few yards separated them from the edge of the grove when Paine pointed with excitement to the side.

"Look! It's Auron!"

The figure in red was striding across the meadow on a path leading diagonally away from them.

"We can ask him all those questions you forgot!" Paine was dancing in excitement. "Look. He's sitting down. Maybe he saw us and is waiting." She tugged at his arm impatiently.

Nooj restrained her, "Wait. Let's think about this. Are you sure you want to ask all the questions? Remember what you said to Baralai ... you don't want things to be too easy."

"Yes, but ..."

"Paine, have you ever truly thought about what eternity means? It's not going to stop. This is what we're stuck with. There's no end, no chance for ending."

Paine abruptly sat down on the mossy hummock at the edge of the forest.

"I hadn't thought. I didn't think," she stammered.

"Not many people do. It's a hard concept to wrap the mind around." He lowered himself awkwardly to the ground beside her. "During our temporal existence, we could anticipate a destination – we had a limit on our actions and had to fit them into the available time. That's not true here. We have nothing but time and too little to fill it."

"So boredom is our chief foe?" she asked.

"I can't think of any other. We can't be hurt or killed. Boredom is always a problem for perfection. Think. It was the flaws in our world that kept us interested and challenged. One of the subjects I'm eager to bring up with Auron is how he keeps his sanity here. There may be some way around this endless tedium. Otherwise this FarPlane is more of a hell than a heaven. ... I still don't understand why I ended up here when I don't believe in this place and was aimed for the Nothingness my father finally found."

"But he was here and waited all those years for you."

"I wonder how long it seemed to him. I got the impression he was alone during his wait."

Paine looked down, apparently studying the moss which carpeted the forest. "Do you hunger for Nothingness as you once did for Death?"

"Not so single-mindedly." His crooked smile softened the angles of his face. "I can now afford the time for other things, other hungers." He swept her into his arms.

When she had caught her breath, she pressed her demands. "What do you want in the end?"

"Certainly not an endless existence here, punctuated by the occasional memory erasure. Although, I suppose we wouldn't notice it if it happened. Maybe we've done that already and are repeating all this for some innumerable time.... No! I won't entertain that thought! It's too close to madness. I must assume some things are as they seem or there's no point in thinking any longer. As I have said, I want Nothingness."

She was silent, trying to put into words or images what she envisioned as her own ultimate destination. There was nothing other than the man beside her which drew her with any potency. She would, she decided, walk with him into the Nothingness of his heart's desire. It would be far better than any sort of existence without him. But that was a thing not to be spoken aloud.

She was too proud to demand that he declare his intentions toward her. He had expressed his desire to flee this plane when he became bored. Did he want her to accompany him or was he paying her what he probably considered the ultimate compliment by leaving her free to set her own course? Although she seethed inwardly, she steeled herself to reveal nothing of her turmoil.

"When do you think you'll have sucked this level dry of amusement?" Her voice was as cool as it had always been when she was alive.

Something in her tone caught his ear and he examined her intently. An almost visible light crossed his face and he raised one eyebrow. "Not for quite some time – if we can use that meaningless word here. I have no wish to be parted from you. But you know that. I expect we'll reach our tolerance for boredom at about the same time. There's just one question we'll need to have answered by then: is it possible to go onward together?"

She almost collapsed in the sudden relief that suffused her body like a drug flowing through her veins. "Yes. I suppose so. It won't do to break up the team again. After all, there aren't any weapons here so you can't shoot me."

"No. And I'm still my own man so far." He permitted her the privacy of her thoughts and looked away into the forest but could not forego a gentle tease. "Are you sure you don't want to go ask Auron if we can make life as well as love in this place?"

She gave her sudden grin, the one that lighted up her entire somber face. "Why don't we just experiment? And in the meantime, let's find that brook."

"And go upstream this time."

They smiled at one another in perfect understanding. And walked hand in hand into the jeweled forest.

11/06/0412


End file.
